Can I ask, why not use non-upped Phoenix instead of the crimson dragon? You can play them off the first immolation, and they are effectively 2-3 more RoL in the deck, allowing you to sacrifice something in case your opener has no RoL, but has cremations, lava destroyers, and dragons (which would be phoenixes, in this case).
And they let you do dumb things like an opener of 2x Phoenix, 1x Lava Golem, 2x Cremation. That's 30 damage on the second turn. Let alone the nuts opener of 2x phoenix, 2x lava golem, 3x cremation, which is an astounding 46 damage, second turn.
That's a great idea that I'm going to try right now. That will also help get around SOME creature control and they'll make amazing bait for targeted spells if you can get them out quick enough.
I love this deck, I've been playing on and off for a while and this deck + a liquid antimatter deck finally got me into the game properly.
Long story short, I was trying too hard with a convoluted FFQ deck ( was a good deck, but fully unupped and losses were slow and agonizing, and above all discouraging. ).
Edit: I just took out an upped nymph deck on a bad draw precisely because I had a phoenix out. They even had the antimatter nymph immo'd. I kept 3 golems below 7 AP, and would alternate building them up while sacing and reviving the phoenix repeatedly. A few lucky cremation draws saved the day, and I managed to limit the bad nymphs by targeting the purple and black towers. ( only ever got 2 antimatter, killed one with rage potion, got one liquid shadow out at the very very end, but it was way too late to do anything important. )
This isn't the only game I've won because of the phoenix since I first posted it was a good idea; but it's by far the most impressive. Cheers for the idea!
