The basis of this deck is to set up a boardwipe using flame charge with various other mechanics. This is the type of deck that either gets stomped before it gets going or wins spectacularly. This is a modified version of a deck I used 2 years ago to end tiny's long winstreak with Fae/meta KF. Conversely, i've also been beaten by weak opponents running weak decks due to the long setup time. This deck is a ton of fun, but certainly isn't consistent enough to be a top tier deck. Main Deck Combos: Flame Surge + Flame Charge + Transfusion: This is certainly the main combo of the deck, it allows you to deal massive damage per movement of AP, and transfusion lets you get a lot of AP. The most champs i've killed in a turn with this combo is 8. Flame Surge + Revere Akakios + Various other fire damage: If you're not familiar with the ability, Revere: Akakios generates 2 nora every time a champion takes fire damage (excluding charred). This ability also stacks, meaning you can generate 4 nora per ap spent by your fire phoenix during flame surge. This is obviously also useful with abilities like flamethrower, fire bomb, and annihilate. Rune Justification: Akakios: Mass AoE fire damage, required for Revere: Akakios to trigger. Somewhat tanky. Demon-Lich: I actually kinda hate this rune to be honest. He's hella squishy and doesn't do much. Feel free to sub out whatever for this guy, I never find myself wanting to deploy him. Flame charge is a lot more relevant in this deck than fire amp anyway Fire Phoenix: Again, obvious. Probably the most important non-Imp Familiar rune in the deck. Run him with death nova. Goblin Arsonist: very cheap, does a lot of damage. Love these little guys but they can be a liability sometimes due to their squishyness. Goblin Dirtbag: Decent staller, but again, very squishy. Has fire amp and attack fire. Imp Familiar: the most important rune in the deck, deploy as soon as you feel that you wont get run over for spending mid 70's nora on something that wont do anything for a few rounds. Side note: when you're about to replicate for the second time, doom your non-clone imp familiar. Then when you go to powerturn, sacrifice it after using flame charge and pick up the globe. This will give you a lot of extra nora for your powerturn. Be sure to use the SL avatar so your impas can get regen from the SL font bonus. Priest of Fury: Revere Akakios is really good in this deck, and fire acoltye pretty much means he's going to heal to full if he isn't one rounded. Pretty expensive with low base HP though, so watch positioning. Rip demon: REALLY REALLY REALLY good stats for the cost in this deck with a nice antimelee kit to boot. Gives UD champs 1 AP on deploy which is nice for fire phoenix. Skeezick Machinist: Great staller, has fire bomb. I like these dudes. Battle Fatigue: You're running a lot of non-basic attack based damage. Battle fatigue is really really good anytime that's the case. It's also a decent stalling rune which is important because the deck needs to stall like crazy. Draconic Pulsar: The largest range fire AoE in the deck, can be situationally bad because it hits your own stuff. It's useful for intentionally killing your own fire phoenix in its 20 hp form to trigger the death nova and fire jab after its already expended its flame surge. Fire Blast: AoE Fire damage for when a lot of stuff is in AoE 2 Fire Storm: AoE Fire damage for when a lot of stuff is in AoE 3, but not AoE 2 Minefield: Good stalling rune, does fire damage Purge: I love the versatility. anti-CC for your phoenix, anti-protection for your opponent. Ret: Not really that important. Probably going to sub out for a tinderbox to let akakios live longer. Sac: I use this pretty much exclusively for that imp familiar combo mentioned above. Borghas: obvious, but be careful you don't one shot it during a powerturn. Not really worth it unless you're getting 2 pulses. This honestly this spell kinda feels redundant, you could consider using something else. Transfusion: Used in phoenix boardwipe combo. Cauldron: Good for taking out a rogue fire immune champ in your opponent's deck. Make no mistake though, this deck will 100% lose to other fire decks. Dragon skull: 25% fire amp for relatively cheap. This is by far the most relevant source of fire amp in the deck, and the only one I want to consistently deploy. Hive: Pers counter and good contesting relic. Orb of Protection: Provides solid mitigation and pretty much never dies due to fire acolyte. Deck Strengths: - Ability to beat players that are much better than you due to the unconventional nature of the deck - Very scary late game - Fun to play - Good deck for training game sense; requires great attention to detail when it comes to deploy order, planning ahead, and timing powerturns. Deck Weaknesses: - Can easily lose to any deck due to atrocious early game. - Lacks tanks. Consider swapping runes out for champs like Draksar hunchback or KWing Alpha. - Difficult to play - Autoloses to other fire decks, and key runes like machinist and minefield are weak to FW's desecration spell. This deck is in no way optimized, as it has changed rather significantly from my old version. If you've got any suggestions to improve the deck, let me know!
I'd think about trying a Peridot Sphere for added AOE damage. Not sure how it interacts with Fire Volatility these days, but I can see it amping your nuke potential quite a bit with some careful positioning.
It's weird though, the deck almost never plays out where borghas is actually a good rune to play. It's probably because I emphasize fire phoenix so heavily and I only run 2 fire bomb units. Realistically I might just be missing opportunities with it, but at this point i'm strongly considering removing it for something else. Side note: I did some swapping around with the runes and ended up with this: And it feels a lot better. The KWing Alphas feel really useful as that stalling tank I needed. Tinder is nice for keeping Akakios alive, even if the +1 spd clause goes to waste.
The best Firewombo combo, is Firemaw + D. Leviathan, eat the dragon, wait ressurect, eat again. And if you managed to keep Leviathan alive, Cataclysm deals with it.
I've seen DrSteve play this bg in ranked, and he is in the top 50. The firemaw combo is usually played pure UD and I'm sure most UD players are exotic or below. I could be wrong but this one is competitive and that one isn't.
Transmission relay. It means that with 2 priests out then every turn you can run akakios in, annihilate everything, get rich, have it die, proc roar of the fallen, then resummon him and do it again.
Haha thanks for the vote of confidence but I think if I ran this consistently in ranked I'd drop out of the top 50. It's potent in certain circumstances and has the potential to beat the strongest bg, but it's rather inconsistent. The old version 2 years ago was actually consistent enough for top 20 material but that was mainly because the UD doomy was insane. I do think this deck is a lot less one dimensional and more competitive than the other one for sure though.
That's actually a great idea but i'm concerned about what I would take out for it. I've also not lost a game in which I was able to deploy akakios so far; its usually getting to that point that's the problem. I'll run a variant with the relay to test it for sure though.
