Denied!

PewPewPew, Landsmack, even Carpe Noctem are beat!

Denied
https://gist.github.com/1021356

The crux of the deck is discard and creature removal, funneled into damage with Bloodchief Ascension. Unlike Landsmack and Carpe Noctem, there’s no mana ramp. Just efficient-costed creatures:

• Vault Skirge. Drop turn 0 using 2 life. It will quickly make up the difference, and then some.
• Pulse Tracker and Blood Seeker. Fun in multiplayer.
• Gatekeeper of Malakir and Skinrender. Card advantage.
• Stronghold Rats and Hypnotic Specter. Unblockable + discard.

Discard also fuels a kind of Flash, through Howltooth Hollow. Once everyone’s Hellbent, cast an exiled card for free. Bonuses for playing creatures, bonuses for attacking, bonuses for making opponents discard, bonuses for creature removal, bonuses for opponents using sorceries and instants. This deck is tightly integrated, and on the fast side of decks, that it manages to keep up with and beat Carpe Noctem.

pewpewpew

A little while ago, I published my first good deck carpe noctem. Every Magic deck has a weakness (else the game would be boring). Carpe Noctem’s weakness is cheap creature removal. This includes anything from weenie 1/1 blockers to Doomblade to Lightning Bolt.

And that’s where pewpewpew begins. This deck is mono red burn, using Pyromancer Ascension to eventually create copies of every Instant and Sorcery. Instants like Lightning Bolt and Magma Spray are great for out-of-turn creature removal. Magma Spray even exiles its victims. Then Sorceries such as Flame Rift and Slagstorm pummel players to a pulp.

pewpewpew often ends up top decking, so Howling Mine and Browbeat are there for card draw. To speed up Pyromancer Ascension, there’s Volt Charge. Tezzeret’s Gambit would help with both card draw and Pyromancer Ascension, but it’s generally cheaper just to play more spells (Tezzeret’s Gambit costs {3}{PR}). Burn the Impure would be a good sideboard against infect decks. Otherwise, take it or leave it.

How does pewpewpew play? It beats carpe noctem 3 out of 4 games, and it’s none too shabby against noninfect decks.

Update: My decks are getting good. Infect vs Burn: Infect was at 2 life, Burn was at 9 poison. By chance, Infect won (Hand of the Praetors + Reanimate + Ichorclaw Myr + Inkmoth Nexus). If Burn had drawn a Lightning Bolt, Shock, Slagstorm, Volt Charge, or Flame Rift, that spell would have copied (twice with two activated Pyromancer Ascensions). Neck-and-neck Magic is fun Magic.