pyroblast etc?

[folding_music]

haven't dabbled with Commander in a while but I was thinking about making a deck around Rootha, Mercurial Artist, the various elemental blasts, a few pseudo-worthwhile colour changers (Govern the Guildless?) and Bösium Strip... it'd be casual and not cutthroat, I don't have all the staples but still worry about the idea that people'd see pointed "hoser" cards and say I can't play. does this happen much? and do you ever run pyroblast?

[Ulka]

I play Blind Seer as one of my staple decks. I play color hosers all the time and its just finding a decent balance and what becomes truly hosing vs just effective.

[Crazy Monkey]

I do run Pyroblast in several decks, although most are in the "upper end" of my casual decks by power level. It's one of red's few counterspells excluding target changing or Fork effects to counter the counter, so I typically include it if the deck operates in the stack a lot and has no other ways to protect itself.

On what I think your more general question is regarding color specific cards, I have an entire deck built around such cards and Magical Hack effects that it is targeted at lower level games. I have not personally had players at that power level complain about the deck, typically because it takes a long time to set up to interact with every player at the table. The one time it was vaguely oppressive was when all three of my opponents were in the same 2-3 colors and Tidal Control was landed early.

I don't think that color specific cards are unfair, especially because your Pyroblast has a chance of having no targets in a game and is just taking up deck space.

[materpillar]

I play Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast in Jaya Ballard, Task Mage. They're rarely dead cards and if they are they can just be discards to Jaya for one of her other abilities. They're stronger in non-u because you can win counterspells wars much easier when people aren't expecting you to participate in them at all.

I've never had anyone complain about it being cast. If someone complains that you Red Elemental Blasted their Counterspell, they're just a hypocrite.

I have had some people express annoyance at Jaya Ballard, Task Mage's first ability but she hoses most generals by herself not just blue ones.

[RowanKeltizar]

I personally haven't run them in my playgroup. Just too unreliable since there isn't that person that ALWAYS plays blue. Compost and Insight HAVE been great though.

So I think it really just dends on who are planning to play against. If you do run them, make sure you also run looting effects so you trade them for cards that actually do something if you can't use them.

May I ask what drew you to Rootha, Mercurial Artist? With so many Izzet commanders out there why this one? Personally, I think there are some mid-range or casual commanders that are more interesting to build around.

[folding_music]

re: Rootha's power level, I'd wanna play her cos it's the first legendary creature I've found relateable. I'm not a giant dragon and have zero martial prowess but I know how it feels to be frustrated by creative pursuits and have the urge to vanish =P I'm not really a "will this be good? will this help me win?" kinda player anyway, it's more about doing something novel with cards I like

[RowanKeltizar]

Understood. I might suggest looking for ways to reduce the cost of replaying her or even cheating her into play somehow. Paying 5 to copy a spell isn't ideal, but there are probably some ways to get more value from it. Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty could be one way to do that. You could also try Training Grounds or even Heartstone. Urza's Filter might be ok if you are running a lot of U/R spells too.

You can also get some mileage by copying rituals like High Tide Mana Geyser or Jeska's Will. There's also things like Prismari Command or Unexpected Windfall or Visions of Ruin.

You could even go izzet tokens with this commander and play things like Talrand, Sky Summoner and Young Pyromancer. Impact Tremors might be good in that case, but also anything with Magecraft would be great since magecraft counts copies spells also.

[Treamayne]

haven't dabbled with Commander in a while but I was thinking about making a deck around Rootha, Mercurial Artist, the various elemental blasts, a few pseudo-worthwhile colour changers (Govern the Guildless?) and Bösium Strip... it'd be casual and not cutthroat, I don't have all the staples but still worry about the idea that people'd see pointed "hoser" cards and say I can't play. does this happen much? and do you ever run pyroblast?

I think most players recognize that there is a difference between targeted anti-color/color-based value (Roots of Life) and Karma/Boil/Perish-esque effects. IME, it is the latter that tends to draw ire (even rage-quits), especially if teh table happens to have a mono-X player that is effectively knocked out of the game from your anti-X effect.

I have not witnessed heartburn over color-based value (since it doesn't stop a player from playing, I think), and have rarely heard grumbling about targeted anti-color (and usually in the "Who plays that?" vein). You may ask your playgroup if you have a steady one, but I would not expect resistance to this type of deck.

PS: Bösium Strip loves rebound. . .