Poor mans take on Pyromancer's Acsension

[Ubersuck]

I thought the pyromancer's ascension deck looked like fun but i did not have any extra turn spells or creatures, so i swapped time control for milling and here is the result!
Any tweaks or suggestions are welcome, keep in mind i have little money to dump into playsets of rares.

Lands:
Mountain x12
Island x10
Scalding Tarn x1
Halimar Depths x2
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle x1

Creatures:
Echo mage x2

Other Spells:
Lava Axe x4
Chandra Nalaar x1
Chain Reaction x1
Destructive Force x1
Pyromancer Ascension x2
Archive Trap x1
Recurring Insight x1
Jace's Erasure x1
Polymorph x1
Unsummon x4
Tome Scour x4
Cancel x4
Call to Mind x2
Forsee x4
Searing Blaze x 4
Lightning bolt x 4

Artifacts:
Howling Mine x2
Keening Stone x1

[Disturbedone0777]

One thing that this deck is made to do is trigger Pyromancer's Ascension as early as possible. Running only two copies won't allow you to draw it nearly enough to get it on the field. This is one of my current favorite decks to run, though I play a grixis version of it. The reason that blue is almost always running in the deck is the draw. The whole thought behind the deck relies on Pyromancers. So it's definitely a 4 of. The reason that you run control on the end of it, is so that you have a counter for enchantment removing magic at all times, since you rely so heavily on the one enchantment. I like the idea of trying to run mill in the deck as opposed to control but the reliance on the enchant makes that a little slower and weaker in my opinion. The other thing is that this deck needs lots of copies of a few spells. That's so there is always copies of a spell in the graveyard so you can get your counters on the enchantment the deck is focused around.

With that in mind though you could still make this deck work. I would first off drop any spell you have that is above 3 Mana. It's not really worth it to run these spells as the goal is fast action. I would run 4 Tome Scour for the milling part of the deck. At this point I would run 4 Mana leak for the counter spell, and then 4x Ponder in order to sort through the deck faster. As her abilities don't really help the deck I would drop the planeswalker and all of the 1 of spells your running. Change Lava Axe out for burst lightning as it is the kill condition most of the time in this deck. Plus it sees it's way around damage reduction. I'm Confused why your running Polymorph. It's not really good as a removal tool by itself as you could accidently assist your opponent with it.

These are of course just suggestions. The main thing you want to remember with the deck is that it's center on the enchantment of it's same name. You want 4 of them. And since that card relies a lot on spells being cast often, you want a lot of 4 of spells to trigger it fast. Once you have one active you want your kill condition in hand as fast as possible, which is were card draw comes in. Those Howling mines are good for that. I like the idea of a milling Kill condition versus a burning condition and I might make a variant on it myself just because of this. Awesome idea.

[Ubersuck]

Thanks for the feedback! This deck went 3 of 5 last night vs my wife's mono-black vampire deck. I fully agree with you in regard to swapping cancels for mana leaks, but i currently have just one leak right now. I only have the two ascensions in my collection, which is why i included the echo mages. I have the burst lightnings to swap, but i was thinking perhaps of using fireballs instead. Really consider chain lightning for use against aggro decks as it saved my butt a bunch of times.
Polymorph is kinda filling that "Bane-SLAYER" role as you can't really polymorph into something worse. The weakness there is i have been force to hold it in my hand for awile at times.
Please post your version if you decide to try an "ascension mill" deck.

[Disturbedone0777]

Alright well here is my idea on a Mill Version of Pyromancers Acension. This version will only be standard legal till Scars comes out but I like the idea of using Grixis as the basis for it.

Spells
Mind Funeral x4
Mana Leak x4
Terminate x4
Lightning Bolt x4
See Beyond x4
Burst Lightning x4
Ponder x4
Tome Scour x4

Enchantments
Pyromancers Ascension x4

Land's
Crumbling Necropolis x2
Drowned Catacomb x4
DragonSkull Summit x3
Scalding Tarn x4
Island x4
Mountain x3
Swamp x2

The objective is the same as the one with a burn win condition. The only difference is with this deck the win condition is actually to use Mind Funeral when your acension is active. The mana leaks should be saved to keep the Pyromancers around. The terminates and burn should hold creatures down, and burn can be used for another kill condition should you not draw what you need, but with 4 ponders and 4 See beyond it shouldn't be hard to draw what is needed. I did the mana support with the thought of 3 mana being the highest cost of spell. Hoping to draw the necropolis only turn 1, since they slow you down after that. I'll be giving this deck a test out tomorrow sometime.

Also when I started I was trying to bear in mind the cost of the deck. There are a few cards in here that could be considered cash rares. The land fixing is always something that costs a little money but to me they are some of the most useful cards in any set. Land fixing is almost always worth the investment. Outside of that though I'm fairly sure that most cards in this deck are under $4. Terminate I'm not sure about but with Jund not being the only thing around anymore I'm sure they aren't at their highest.

[Ubersuck]

neat, i do have some terminates laying around and i seem to have a knack for pulling a lot of dual lands. I like the low mana coat of this deck. this should roll really fast. lemme know how this runs for you.

[Disturbedone0777]

I went ahead and tested this deck once. Didn't have the time to play a game two. Game one was a little rough because I couldn't get any of my card draw, no ponders and no See beyond. I think this deck would benefit greatly from howling mine, and when the standard rotates, probably the bell, or else Crystal Ball (A pet card of mine). It's still okay price wise minus the land base. I'm going to want to look at scars for potential improvements that aren't too costly. It was also brought to my attention that the spells that have rebound or whatever it is that they cast again on your opponents upkeep or whatever, those spells in this deck would be pretty sick.

[Ubersuck]

Agreed, also consider a jace beleran, since I added him I never find myself with a shortage of cards in hand. His ultimate also works well with the mill