Jay Lansdaal and Travis Sowers are here to discuss our latest sweet preview card: Wildfire.

Jay Lansdaal: While [card]Wildfire[/card] hasn’t seen much play in Modern so far, you can definitely rain fire on some poor Tron, Scapeshift, or control deck’s parade by ramping out this mass land destruction effect. How would you go about this? Well, first of, we would want to be better off than our opponents when we cast Wildfire. This means we won’t want to be ramping this out with [card]Elvish Mystic[/card]s—that would be what we call stupid “card disadvantage”.

Instead, we’re going to be taking a page out of the book of one of the best Magic players ever:

Wildfire ‘99 by Kai Budde

[deck]
[Lands]
3 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
13 Mountain
[/Lands]
[Spells]
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Fire Diamond
4 Grim Monolith
2 Mishra’s Helix
4 Temporal Aperture
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Voltaic Key
4 Wildfire
2 Worn Powerstone
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
4 Covetous Dragon
1 Karn, Silver Golem
3 Masticore
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
2 Shattering Pulse
4 Spellshock
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Boil
1 Phyrexian Processor
1 Mishra’s Helix
3 Earthquake
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Now, this deck is from a while ago, but the principles are still sound: you ramp out a creature big enough to survive a Wildfire with artifact mana, then blow up the world and kill them with a giant monster while they can’t cast spells. Old school Magic style!

How do we do this in Modern though? We don’t really have Grim Monolith anymore… But we do have some other cards:

Wildfire 2015 by Jay Lansdaal

[deck]
[Lands]
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Boros Garrison
1 Clifftop Retreat
10 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
[/Lands]
[Spells]
2 Ajani Vengeant
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Blood Moon
4 Boros Signet
2 Coalition Relic
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Khalni Gem
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Wildfire
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Ember Swallower
3 Greater Gargadon
4 Hanweir Watchkeep
[/Creatures]
[Sideboard]
1 Blood Crypt
2 Smash to Smithereens
3 Dragon’s Claw
3 Rakdos Charm
3 Murderous Cut
3 Leyline of Sanctity
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Not as explosive, but with [card]Blood Moon[/card] and [card]Ajani Vengeant[/card] in the mix, plenty of “you can’t cast spells” goodness! Also, who doesn’t want to play with gems like [card]Khalni Gem[/card] and [card]Hanweir Watchkeep[/card]?

Travis Sowers: If the first Modern Masters was any indication, we’re up for a draft format that is MUCH more powerful than anything we’ve seen in the last year. Think cube, but you get to keep the cards and you’re off to a great start. Some of the best cube drafts I’ve done have involved this card. It’s a bit early to say it’s a bona fide bomb, as we’ve not seen the entire spoiler, but [card]Wildfire[/card] can do serious work in the right deck.

We’re going to want a mana ramp deck to truly take advantage of this card. Artifact based ramp is where it’s at. Armageddon stapled to a pyroclasm on steroids can really get a board stabilized! It’s not out of the question to think the signets from Ravnica block might turn up, and if they do Wildfire is looking like a game plan! We’ll want to keep our eye out for creatures we can ramp into with big buts, as anything that can be left on the board after the fires die down gives us a huge advantage (I’m looking at you, Primeval Titan!). Wildfire reminds me a bit of Balance. It’s a symmetrical card, and though much harder to “break” than balance, the reward can be huge when you’re able to make it work. Remember, you know this is in your deck, and can craft a board state to take full advantage of the card.

If the right tools are in the format, and the amount of metalcraft cards we’ve seen spoiled so far would seem to indicate that they are, then [card]Wildfire[/card] could certainly be seen burning through the draft tables at Face to Face Games in the near future! Keep your eye on this one, and I’ll see you here on ManaDeprived.com for a Modern Masters 2015 draft just as soon as it is released online!