A nice finisher for infinite mana. Few spells can counter all the copies.
PolskiSuzeren
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Man, I love this card! I remember the very first game I played, I was handed a r/u deck from the ravnica block and they sat me down in a 4 man FFA. I ended up knocking two people out with this card =D Oh, memories. I don't even play red anymore, but I still love it.
I love this card in principle. However, I would really love it if it cost just R for the replicate. It'd be more aggressively costed and would fit flavorfully as well (flames come easier once you start it up).
On the other hand, it'd definitely be more than common-powerful at that point.
DarthParallax
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.9/5.0)(5 votes)
It is sad how much Lightning Bolt makes this look bad. Even Shock seemed better, but Replicate 'sorta' made up for that. Next to Lightning Bolt, though? No reason to play this without an infinite combo. What makes me half-mad but okay with that is that Izzet was the guild of Combo, so it fits with that....but I really think that any Red card that stoops to the level of needing to combo to be good is not pulling the weight of the color. RDW is supposed to be the perennial non-combo answer to combo, and if even Red falls back on Combo as Green already has, then the entire game will be combo forever. I don't want to live in that world.
Kryptnyt
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(7 votes)
Why do people say things like "I don't play red anymore?" My only experience has been a constant flow of new deck ideas and tactics. Keeping the same deck forever is just not fun. Using all the colors and their combinations is the way to play Magic!
Palutena
★★☆☆☆ (2.3/5.0)(3 votes)
Hey look Kumano, can do it for you now ,and exile it too
NeoKoda
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Er, Death, this hits all creatures.
Izzet sure are cool.
DaMaster012
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Pyromatics... MY OLD NEMESIS, WE MEET AGAIN. ALL MY HATE.
I've loathed this card ever since I started using it when I first started playing Magic over six years ago upon receiving an Izzet Gizmometry starter deck from my older and younger brother. It befuddles me that such a potentially amazing mechanic like replicate for the most part ended up stamped on instants and sorceries that were among some of the worst ever printed; all the more bewildering considering that the Izzet were supposed to be unparalleled masters of magic. Replicate cards were sold as supposed to be able to "be flexible enough for early or late game," but only accomplished reaching new lows. Despite all that, this one by far knows how lonely it is on the bottom.
Lets compare, shall we?
If you cast this as soon as you can, it's for 1 damage. For that same amount of mana, you could cast a Volcanic Hammer, dealing 3 damage.
To deal as much damage as that Volcanic Hammer, you'd have to spend six mana; at six mana, you could cast a Blaze to deal 5 damage.
Now for Pyromatics to keep up with the Blaze, you'd have to dump ten mana into it, just to deal 5 damage. For that much mana, you could cast two Lava Axes, dealing twice the damage to a player. Hell; by that point, you can cast Decree of Annihilation.
See where I'm going with this?
I personally rate burn spells by how much damage you get for how much mana; the more damage you get for less mana, the better I rate the card. Lightning Bolt for example, has one of the best burn efficiencies out there, netting a 300% return on damage, so it deserves a high rating (it'd be a sin to give it anything less than a 4/5). This waste of cardboard, however, has a pathetic 50% burn efficiency, so I think that it's more than fair to reflect it in the rating.
0.5 out of 5 for being the worst instant/sorcery burn spell I can think of. There may be worse ones out there... but probably not that many.
Whitewind617
★☆☆☆☆ (1.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@DaMaster012 It's not about the damage for the amount of mana you're using, the whole point of this card is that the replications count as multiple casts. This works INCREDIBLY well with cards like Wee Dragonauts, Charmbreaker Devils (which can easily become game winning if replicated like three times,) Chandra's Spitfire, stuff like that.
The whole point is that the card allows you to cast a great number of spells in one turn with only one card. Without cards like pyromatics, doing huge damage with cards like Wee Dragonauts wouldn't really be feasible, as you'd need them all in your hand to give them the bonus damage. In addition to that, it's better early game removal than cards like Volcanic Hammer as it allows you to hit multiple creatures, letting you blow it on weak 1/1s early on while you save the hammers for the bigger bombs.
ProbablyThatGuy
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@Whitewind617
Unfortunately, cards that activate on casting spells do not work with replicate. When you replicate the spell, you are putting the additional copies of the spell directly on the stack, and not casting them yourself. Most other copying mechanics function the same way, but a few Special Kind of Crazy cards do indeed cast the copies.
Chandra's Spitfire, on the other hand, I agree is great fun with this card.
DoragonShinzui
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
2 mana for 1 damage is never, under any circumstances, a good deal. No matter how you slice it. You can replicate it all you want, but this will always, and forever more, be an atrocious and unplayable burn spell. It is outclassed by EVERY burn spell with a set cost, every burn spell with an alternate cost, every burn for X spell, and even the burn spells GREEN AND WHITE GET.
Yukikah
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
One time I do love this card is against illusions; turns every two mana you replicate into a kill spell, so long as you've made sure to get rid of any targeting restrictions (IE; Lord of Illusions). That said I could see someone building a fun EDH deck with spells like this and Dismiss into Dream or Cowardice
Aside from targeting tricks, I wouldn't grade this worse than a 1.5 or 2 maybe; obviously this spell is designed around multiple targets, and in that respect it's pretty much the equal of Fireball (both would pay {4} to deal 1 damage to two creatures). Fireball is more flexible in the fact it costs less to deal a lot of damage to one target, but Pyromantics has its own advantage in being able to distribute the damage more freely rather than dividing and rounding.
Agree that none of that still makes it a good burn spell, but those saying it's the worst ever or giving it a 0.5 rating are very much underestimating and oversimplifying things.
leomistico
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@DaMaster012: Wow! You really didn't understand this card, did you? You can't compare it to the majority of the burn spells, not with Volcanic Hammer, nor Lava Axes, Blaze neither, because it's very different. You can compare with Arc Lightning Conflagrate Fire Fireball Forked Bolt Rolling Thunder Electrolyze and the like... Since this is an instant, so it's better to compare it with other instants. Notice that the even sorcery aren't strictly better, and only situationally better. Fire Electrolyze Not so many, uh? They are better to deal 2 damages, and are very good cards, but in order to deal more damages you have to choose Pyromatics. This kind of spells are very costy because they are CARD ADVANTAGE in RED, something that is quite difficult to gain... This is at instant speed and very "modular": you can play it in your second turn to burn a Birds of Paradise, or you can use later to burn a couple of creatures... You can also compare it with Geistflame Lava Dart and I agree that Geistflame is quite good, but none of the card mentioned until now is strictly better that this, so I don't think that Pyromatics are the worst burn spell... If you think a little about it, you may find that Pyromatics are quite nice. Not impressive amount of damages, but pointed where you need them. Moreover, it's quite difficult to counter every copy of them, because you need a counterspell for every one.
I like it for the great potential card advantage, and sometimes I play some of them. Obviously, you can't rely only on those if you plan to win dealing damages via spells, but are good to take down little annoying creatures, like Birds, Lotus Cobra, Dark Confidant, and the like... Greatly undestimated
4/5
Edit: 2 mana for 1 damage is never, under any circumstances, a good deal. No matter how you slice it. Posted By: DoragonShinzui (2/10/2013 6:46:52 PM) Grapeshot Say it again...
Comments (17)
nuff said.
On the other hand, it'd definitely be more than common-powerful at that point.
Izzet sure are cool.
I've loathed this card ever since I started using it when I first started playing Magic over six years ago upon receiving an Izzet Gizmometry starter deck from my older and younger brother. It befuddles me that such a potentially amazing mechanic like replicate for the most part ended up stamped on instants and sorceries that were among some of the worst ever printed; all the more bewildering considering that the Izzet were supposed to be unparalleled masters of magic. Replicate cards were sold as supposed to be able to "be flexible enough for early or late game," but only accomplished reaching new lows. Despite all that, this one by far knows how lonely it is on the bottom.
Lets compare, shall we?
If you cast this as soon as you can, it's
To deal as much damage as that Volcanic Hammer, you'd have to spend six mana; at six mana, you could cast a Blaze to deal 5 damage.
Now for Pyromatics to keep up with the Blaze, you'd have to dump ten mana into it, just to deal 5 damage. For that much mana, you could cast two Lava Axes, dealing twice the damage to a player. Hell; by that point, you can cast Decree of Annihilation.
See where I'm going with this?
I personally rate burn spells by how much damage you get for how much mana; the more damage you get for less mana, the better I rate the card. Lightning Bolt for example, has one of the best burn efficiencies out there, netting a 300% return on damage, so it deserves a high rating (it'd be a sin to give it anything less than a 4/5). This waste of cardboard, however, has a pathetic 50% burn efficiency, so I think that it's more than fair to reflect it in the rating.
0.5 out of 5 for being the worst instant/sorcery burn spell I can think of. There may be worse ones out there... but probably not that many.
It's not about the damage for the amount of mana you're using, the whole point of this card is that the replications count as multiple casts. This works INCREDIBLY well with cards like Wee Dragonauts, Charmbreaker Devils (which can easily become game winning if replicated like three times,) Chandra's Spitfire, stuff like that.
The whole point is that the card allows you to cast a great number of spells in one turn with only one card. Without cards like pyromatics, doing huge damage with cards like Wee Dragonauts wouldn't really be feasible, as you'd need them all in your hand to give them the bonus damage. In addition to that, it's better early game removal than cards like Volcanic Hammer as it allows you to hit multiple creatures, letting you blow it on weak 1/1s early on while you save the hammers for the bigger bombs.
Unfortunately, cards that activate on casting spells do not work with replicate. When you replicate the spell, you are putting the additional copies of the spell directly on the stack, and not casting them yourself. Most other copying mechanics function the same way, but a few Special Kind of Crazy cards do indeed cast the copies.
Chandra's Spitfire, on the other hand, I agree is great fun with this card.
That said I could see someone building a fun EDH deck with spells like this and Dismiss into Dream or Cowardice
Aside from targeting tricks, I wouldn't grade this worse than a 1.5 or 2 maybe; obviously this spell is designed around multiple targets, and in that respect it's pretty much the equal of Fireball (both would pay {4} to deal 1 damage to two creatures). Fireball is more flexible in the fact it costs less to deal a lot of damage to one target, but Pyromantics has its own advantage in being able to distribute the damage more freely rather than dividing and rounding.
Agree that none of that still makes it a good burn spell, but those saying it's the worst ever or giving it a 0.5 rating are very much underestimating and oversimplifying things.
Wow! You really didn't understand this card, did you?
You can't compare it to the majority of the burn spells, not with Volcanic Hammer, nor Lava Axes, Blaze neither, because it's very different. You can compare with
Arc Lightning
Conflagrate
Fire
Fireball
Forked Bolt
Rolling Thunder
Electrolyze
and the like...
Since this is an instant, so it's better to compare it with other instants. Notice that the even sorcery aren't strictly better, and only situationally better.
Fire
Electrolyze
Not so many, uh? They are better to deal 2 damages, and are very good cards, but in order to deal more damages you have to choose Pyromatics. This kind of spells are very costy because they are CARD ADVANTAGE in RED, something that is quite difficult to gain... This is at instant speed and very "modular": you can play it in your second turn to burn a Birds of Paradise, or you can use later to burn a couple of creatures...
You can also compare it with
Geistflame
Lava Dart
and I agree that Geistflame is quite good, but none of the card mentioned until now is strictly better that this, so I don't think that Pyromatics are the worst burn spell... If you think a little about it, you may find that Pyromatics are quite nice. Not impressive amount of damages, but pointed where you need them. Moreover, it's quite difficult to counter every copy of them, because you need a counterspell for every one.
I like it for the great potential card advantage, and sometimes I play some of them. Obviously, you can't rely only on those if you plan to win dealing damages via spells, but are good to take down little annoying creatures, like Birds, Lotus Cobra, Dark Confidant, and the like...
Greatly undestimated
4/5
Edit:
2 mana for 1 damage is never, under any circumstances, a good deal. No matter how you slice it.
Posted By: DoragonShinzui (2/10/2013 6:46:52 PM)
Grapeshot
Say it again...