G/R 'Hail Hydra' Pyrohemia Deck - pointers?

[BobaFettuccini]

Since I started playing, I've dealt exclusively with green and white. In any tcg I've ever played, I've always been about healing and bruisers, so it worked for me. But I want to expand my mind a little, so I'm working on a red/green Pyrohemia deck.

Hail Hydra
By: BobaFettuccini
Legacy
Archive: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1032138

Main Deck:
4 Chandra's Spitfire
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Protean Hydra
4 Skinshifter
4 Sprouting Phytohydra
4 Vulshok Refugee

4 Crushing Pain
2 Mimic Vat
4 Pariah's Shield
4 Pyrohemia
4 Rite of Passage

8 Forest
12 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag

Sideboard:
15 ?

So my idea here is to use Pyrohemia to force my Sprouting Phytohydra to take damage and make tokens and build a wall, Deal Damage to Protean Hydra to buff it up, Deal Damage to opponent to buff up Chandra's Spitfire, and then finally use the Pariah's Shields with the Vulshok Refugee to keep myself from losing too much life to the effects of Pyrohemia.

This deck is still in major alpha stages, and I'm aware that the strategy isn't quite airtight. I don't have a large mental Catalog of cards, let alone red, so fire away with suggestions for improving or replacing different elements.

One thought I had was adding a couple green life gain spells to help cushion potential burn damage, but I want to keep it streamlined and I'm not sure if it's worth the space it would take up.

[Nick 30075]

Much as I like the idea, I don't think that you have enough redundancy. In a deck based around Pyrohemia, what do you do if you don't pull Pyrohemia itself?

The only cards that can tutor for a Pyrohemia in RG are Gamble (expensive) and Wild Research (which requires W). Just be prepared to mulligan a good bit.

Try out Veteran Explorer for the build. You kill him while dealing damage and it ramps you up to deal even more damage.

Black has Pestilence and Crypt Rats, so I guess you could go BG and be kind of similar, but I don't know.

[BobaFettuccini]

I could use Fertile Ground to produce white and use Wild Research... I think I'd rather just camp out til I find a decent price on Gamble.

[Nick 30075]

You could take out Llanowar Elves for Avacyn's Pilgrim and throw in a Plains +3 Terramorphic Expanse and you'd be fine for a light white splash. Generally, you'll already have G because you just cast Llanowar Elves and you don't have a heavy green requirement, so I don't think that he'd be detrimental to your plan. And Terramorphic Expanse is already really good for color consistency.

[BobaFettuccini]

All good ideas, assuming I go the white route. I think I've got a lead on a decent deal on a playset of Gamble though, and that's much less restrictive in terms of mana.