And how many top 8 burn decks play Swiftspear? 30%? 15%? You got 1 deck for Vexing Devil. I'm not gonna say it's bad, but it's not optimal. Sure Monastery Swiftspear might not be either, but it gets a lot better results. Play whatever you want, but truth be told when I went looking at top 8 results you know what most Burn decks played? Neither. They crammed in Searing Blaze and more face burn and kept their creatures limited to Eidolon, Lavamancer, and Guide.
From my understanding is that burn has not been doing well since the introduction of Swiftspear. Burn was explosive when Eidolon was introduced but it sort of fizzled in less then 3 months... (oh that's when Swiftspear was introduced). When I'm talking about explosive, please look at the win records - players were having a hell of a time going around Eidolon because legacy is a low cc format. The only thing I had noticed that players want to make Swiftspear explosive and by doing that they are not locking second turn by playing Eidolon... Therefore burn players seemed to be giving opponents card play opportunity and burn looses because we only have top deck speed.
If you want burn to do good... Eidolon comes in play turn 2...
As for the deck post... Eidolon comes in play in turn 1!
Regarding eleven_pillars.dec, I should have remembered it, so thanks for bringing that up. I'd say the deck did well because it ran so many pillar effects in that meta, and not necessarily because of Devil. The second and third most popular archetypes at that event were Elf combo and Storm combo, so those Devils could have been Grey Ogres and he would have likely seen some success. I was intrigued by that build just as many of us were, but I'm also much less intrigued because it didn't seem to attain any lasting or repeated success.
Grey Orges lol (this is the reason why burn fails.) Vexing Devils is a replacement for the cards Figure of Destiny & Keldon Marauders. Vexing Devil is the only 4/3 CREATURE for 1 RED MANA! It works best when you need to slip a 4/3 creature in play without sacrificing mana resources. I don't need to spend mana/cards to build it up (FoD/Swiftspear) and it stays in play longer then Marauders.
I'm not sure why the deck has not been picked up... I would guess that players are too focused in playing brainstorm (numbers don't lie) over most other types but I'm assuming this. But it doesn't matter, the point is the deck did very well recently and it should be noted. It also did well recently when mono red burn has not been doing much.
From my understanding is that burn has not been doing well since the introduction of Swiftspear. Burn was explosive when Eidolon was introduced but it sort of fizzled in less then 3 months... (oh that's when Swiftspear was introduced). When I'm talking about explosive, please look at the win records - players were having a hell of a time going around Eidolon because legacy is a low cc format. The only thing I had noticed that players want to make Swiftspear explosive and by doing that they are not locking second turn by playing Eidolon... Therefore burn players seemed to be giving opponents card play opportunity and burn looses because we only have top deck speed.
If you want burn to do good... Eidolon comes in play turn 2...
As for the deck post... Eidolon comes in play in turn 1!
Swiftspear doesn't prevent Eidolon from coming down turn 2 like it should, though attacking with Swiftspear for 1 twice isn't very good. If you have an issue with Swiftspear and Eidolon, don't play Swiftspear.
"Eidolon on turn 1" Eidolon doesn't come into play at all when it gets Forced, and then you're down 2 cards against a deck that's going to be drawing cards to refill their hand after that Force. Good luck.
Vexing Devils is a replacement for the cards Figure of Destiny & Keldon Marauders.
Oh, ok, it's a replacement for cards that don't see play. Thanks for reasoning out why Vexing Devil doesn't see play, either.
But it doesn't matter, the point is the deck did very well recently and it should be noted.
You're being dishonest if you claim that deck did well because it had 4 Vexing Devils in it. It did well because it was taxing the snot out of everything with 11 Pyrostatic Pillars. There's another issue with focusing on a single deck and trying to draw the conclusion you're trying to draw. Let's look at mathematics. Imagine the x-y plane. Now point a single data point on it. Now draw a line through it. Having trouble figuring out what line to draw? That's because there is an infinite number of lines you can draw through that point. What's that mean? It's impossible to extrapolate from a single data point, but that's what you're doing when you claim "see? Devil did good once. Therefore Devil is good."
I'm not sure why the deck has not been picked up.
Because it's an extreme meta exploiting deck, not a deck any reasonable person would expect to do well outside the meta it's designed to exploit.
Swiftspear doesn't prevent Eidolon from coming down turn 2 like it should, though attacking with Swiftspear for 1 twice isn't very good. If you have an issue with Swiftspear and Eidolon, don't play Swiftspear.
Sure it does... not too many are willing to take 2 damage per spell drop for a later hit.
"Eidolon on turn 1" Eidolon doesn't come into play at all when it gets Forced, and then you're down 2 cards against a deck that's going to be drawing cards to refill their hand after that Force. Good luck.
And so is the opponent (down 2 cards).
Oh, ok, it's a replacement for cards that don't see play. Thanks for reasoning out why Vexing Devil doesn't see play, either.
Swiftspear is also playing the same replacement role.
You're being dishonest if you claim that deck did well because it had 4 Vexing Devils in it. It did well because it was taxing the snot out of everything with 11 Pyrostatic Pillars. There's another issue with focusing on a single deck and trying to draw the conclusion you're trying to draw. Let's look at mathematics. Imagine the x-y plane. Now point a single data point on it. Now draw a line through it. Having trouble figuring out what line to draw? That's because there is an infinite number of lines you can draw through that point. What's that mean? It's impossible to extrapolate from a single data point, but that's what you're doing when you claim "see? Devil did good once. Therefore Devil is good."
There are 2 reasons why the devil works in this deck. First, it has a low mana curve and you can slip it into play without loosing mana resources. Second, it's a 4/3 beat stick that requires no extra mana/pump that works in a forced locked without adding additional damage to yourself.
Had you ever have 2 pillars is play?
Because it's an extreme meta exploiting deck, not a deck any reasonable person would expect to do well outside the meta it's designed to exploit.
This was during the height of Dig Through Time, right before Dig Through Time got banned. The format has not changed much since the banning.
when you claim "see? Devil did good once. Therefore Devil is good."
It's worse than that. As we've both said, it's more likely that Pillars and not Devils were instrumental to that deck's success. Therefore, my interpretation of his argument is, "Mono-Red Pillars did well once. Therefore, Devil belongs in an entirely different (traditional Burn) deck."
So if we're done with this for now, has anyone had any meaningful success with Black Vise? I was bearish on that too and would love to be proven wrong.
Swiftspear doesn't prevent Eidolon from coming down turn 2 like it should, though attacking with Swiftspear for 1 twice isn't very good. If you have an issue with Swiftspear and Eidolon, don't play Swiftspear.
Sure it does... not too many are willing to take 2 damage per spell drop for a later hit.
"Eidolon on turn 1" Eidolon doesn't come into play at all when it gets Forced, and then you're down 2 cards against a deck that's going to be drawing cards to refill their hand after that Force. Good luck.
And so is the opponent (down 2 cards).
Who isn't willing to take 2? The Burn player? Then we wouldn't be playing Eidolon to begin with, except we are.
Did you skip the words "against a deck that's going to be drawing cards to refill their hand after that Force"? Last I checked, we don't play Ponder, Preordain, and Brainstorm. They do. Part of why I'm ok with getting a card Forced is that it costs me 1 and them 2 and they don't have a lot of time to refill, so we are ahead temporarily. If it costs us 2 and them 2, we're even temporarily until they draw more. Everything about this is bad for us.
You're being dishonest if you claim that deck did well because it had 4 Vexing Devils in it. It did well because it was taxing the snot out of everything with 11 Pyrostatic Pillars. There's another issue with focusing on a single deck and trying to draw the conclusion you're trying to draw. Let's look at mathematics. Imagine the x-y plane. Now point a single data point on it. Now draw a line through it. Having trouble figuring out what line to draw? That's because there is an infinite number of lines you can draw through that point. What's that mean? It's impossible to extrapolate from a single data point, but that's what you're doing when you claim "see? Devil did good once. Therefore Devil is good."
There are 2 reasons why the devil works in this deck. First, it has a low mana curve and you can slip it into play without loosing mana resources. Second, it's a 4/3 beat stick that requires no extra mana/pump that works in a forced locked without adding additional damage to yourself.
Had you ever have 2 pillars is play?
Because it's an extreme meta exploiting deck, not a deck any reasonable person would expect to do well outside the meta it's designed to exploit.
This was during the height of Dig Through Time, right before Dig Through Time got banned. The format has not changed much since the banning.
Devil does not *work* in Burn. It was played in a time when there weren't better things to do for R. There are now better things to do for R. Giving your opponent a choice is bad. Devil is a super Lava Spike that deals 4 if played turn one and your opponent doesn't have removal. If they do, it deals zero. If it's late in the game, it deals zero. That's extraordinarily bad. It's not a "4/3 beat stick". It's a 4/3 that's going to either deal 4 once or do nothing.
Have I had two pillars in play? Yes, I've locked down games with two Eidolons before. I don't see how that says anything about Vexing Devil. The key to that meta-exploting deck is not the 4 Devils. It's the 11 Pillars. It's not even a Burn deck, it's 11Pillars.deck and you're just saying "Bolt: Check. Guide: Check. Mono-R: Check. Must be Burn". The Devils don't affect the deck in a positive way. Vexing Devil is bad in Burn. End of story. There's nothing else to say about it.
Please just ignore him, its obvious hes just trying to get attention.
Curby, as for black vise I've tested it some, but didn't get anywhere for me. If you open with it it'll usually end up as a 1 2/3 bolt, but this advantage is negated by being a horrible topdeck, since burn has no library manipulation, this is a big no go for me. So for me it comes down to choice. Do you want more explosiveness or do you want sustainability/predictability?
Edit* Black vise is great against Miracles if your meta calls for it.
I'm not playing Oops or Belcher specifically because I value consistency. Glad to know my gut feeling about Vise was apparently correct. Thanks!
If you read my post from last page I might actually give up playing burn because of consistency issues. It's a great deck when you're drawing what you need and its firing on all cylinders but at the same time the trough is pretty low when you AREN'T drawing what you need (I'll draw land when I need more burn, or I won't draw sideboard cards, or I'll draw spells when I really need a third land to land Vortex, etc.), and the trough only gets lower the more turns your draw step ****s you over. I feel like at least 90% of my losses come from this lack of consistency that you'd probably get with a deck that runs Brainstorm. I'm not sure if this is actually the problem that keeps burn from being tier 1 or if I'm just the unluckiest person in the world but either way I definitely want to try a brainstorm deck out in the future just for the sake of comparison.
FYI, I always slam Eidolon turn 2 if possible regardless of my board state or if my T1 play was swiftspear.
I do think 4 pop is too much (usually 3 is a good number because once players know your playing burn they will reduce the non-basic land drops - unless the deck needs non-basic lands). I do think the format is too fast for Rift Bolt, I know players like to keep rift bolt but drawing 2 in the opening hand sucks (I had dropped my rift bolts down to 2 - but that's up to you.)
On the other hand, you can drop 4 swiftspears (but that's up to you on that). Although, you can drop eidolon and use a black vise/swiftspear build. I have been testing a Swiftspear/Baubles build:
I'm not playing Oops or Belcher specifically because I value consistency. Glad to know my gut feeling about Vise was apparently correct. Thanks!
If you read my post from last page I might actually give up playing burn because of consistency issues. It's a great deck when you're drawing what you need and its firing on all cylinders but at the same time the trough is pretty low when you AREN'T drawing what you need (I'll draw land when I need more burn, or I won't draw sideboard cards, or I'll draw spells when I really need a third land to land Vortex, etc.), and the trough only gets lower the more turns your draw step ****s you over. I feel like at least 90% of my losses come from this lack of consistency that you'd probably get with a deck that runs Brainstorm. I'm not sure if this is actually the problem that keeps burn from being tier 1 or if I'm just the unluckiest person in the world but either way I definitely want to try a brainstorm deck out in the future just for the sake of comparison.
FYI, I always slam Eidolon turn 2 if possible regardless of my board state or if my T1 play was swiftspear.
Have you ever tried Sensei's Divining Top? I've been playing with the card since summer and the results had been awesome! I understand this burn tread started against this things but this burn thread had been seriously outdated since the introduction of Eidolon.
-1 eidolon (cannot remove them all, is the only protection against combo / storm)
-1 rift bolt (still a good future bolt for 1)
-1 price of progress (normally lands 5 damages, on average)
+ 4 Black Vise, on a 61 decks or remove one more card
I advise against removing rift bolt, I would cut lavaspike first, rift bolt is slow, but there is alot of utility to be had. It dodges daze, and spell pierce but the two mana tax from spell pierce will often time be a time walk for your opponent, just wanted to point that out. Being cmc three its great against miracles, and dodges chalice on 1 and 2 which happens alot. It also targets a creature which is infintely awesome compared to lavaspike.
Three price of progress seems like the right number, I've learned that people are greedy when it comes to price and wait too long to try and net more damage, to me price is a 4 damage for 2 mana card, any more is icing on the cake, especially against wasteland decks. Don't wait too long to play this, and you'll be fine. I think three black vise is also the right number, its enough that you have a good chance to run into it on turn 1, when it is optimal. I suggest you test black vise some more before going with 4, turn 1 vise is amazing, turn two vise is dismal. Also like I said earlier, its a horrible top deck.
Basedfuster, so if your opponent has a goyf, or tasigur/angler/reanimated fatty on the board would you still play eidolon? What I'm getting at is that the eidolon play isn't just dependent on your board state, its very dependent on your opponent's boardstate as well. You play it when you have the advantage, on an empty boardstate you will have a 2/2 beatstick that will tax them for everyspell(this is why eidolons are 4 of main deck, while pillars are 1-2 sideboard) but if they have a bigger creature and can afford to not cast anything, while winning the race you've just put yourself in a very bad place.
Another pet peeve of mine is how everyone thinks Swiftspear encourages bad plays, the best way I've ever seen it put is that swiftspear gives all your spells a potential +1 damage through combat, if you cast it pre combat. This makes it very enticing to just dump your hand, but just because you could doesn't mean that you should, mastering burn, like any other legacy deck is about choosing the optimal time to play your spells, this is why burn isn't in the combo category. Swiftspear's advantage is viewed as a weakness because bad players can't control themselves. This is unacceptable.
On Swiftspear/eidolon interaction, I would rather have t 1 swiftspear into t2 eidolon(while opponents doesn't have anything that you need to kill) then nothing t1 into t2 eidolon. Why is this? because that is an awesome boardstate, putting more pressure on your opponent to remove eidolon. And since we can guarantee that they'll kill the eidolon first when they can, we'll be free to dump our hand for on swiftspear if the path is still clear.
I feel your pain when it comes to losing due to topdeck, but thats the nature of the beast, I would much rather be playing R/U burn but dropping a few pay checks to play a consistent burn deck does not fall under smart investments for me. volcs/snapcaster/brainstorm would make this deck alot better, but thats why burn is still semi budget legacy.
honestly was amazing in g1 ( probably 80-90% win but was a disaster in g2 g3 when you try to side out bauble and gitaxian
Before Black Vise was unbanned I've had a green/red deck Bauble Deck that had Gitaxian Probe & Hooting Mandrills... I've also used Lotus Pedals and Storm Entity... I do think Swiftspear and Storm Entity are an awesome partnership with a deck that uses lots of 0cc spells... Hooting Mandrills is sweet too...
Sadly, I'm starting to agree with the others that black vise is no longer as awesome as it used to be... Well, Black Vise still looks awesome in Stasis...
I understand that rift bolt could be better than lava spike, but how can it dodge counters?
Can't they still counter it when you remove last counter on the spell?
I understand that rift bolt could be better than lava spike, but how can it dodge counters?
Can't they still counter it when you remove last counter on the spell?
When the counter is removed the player would have open mana to pay for such counterspells as Daze. And Counterbalance has a harder time to counter a 3cc spell (thought it's not impossible.)
My only complaint against Rift Bolt is multiple in the open hand.
Against show & tell; are we suppose to aggressively mulligan until we find a Bridge?
I will never ship a good hand for a possible Bridge hand, that can easilly remove with a bounce spell.
I agree with this, Miracles is a hard match up. You can't risk mulling a good hand for bridge, because they still run hard counters, as well as bounce. Besides, if they don't assemble the lock in time, a good hand could simply close out the game.
I usually side out goblin guide in this match up, top, and all their other cantrips makes it a really good chance that they will flip lands, and giving a control deck lands is horrible, especially since they run swords, and terminus to answer him.
Against show & tell; are we suppose to aggressively mulligan until we find a Bridge?
I will never ship a good hand for a possible Bridge hand, that can easilly remove with a bounce spell.
I agree with this, Miracles is a hard match up. You can't risk mulling a good hand for bridge, because they still run hard counters, as well as bounce. Besides, if they don't assemble the lock in time, a good hand could simply close out the game.
I usually side out goblin guide in this match up, top, and all their other cantrips makes it a really good chance that they will flip lands, and giving a control deck lands is horrible, especially since they run swords, and terminus to answer him.
I was actually talking about the combo version of Show & Tell (I din't know miracle played it)
But I'll try to trust my bridge-less hands a bit more; forgot it wasn't a hard lock since they can still bounce it
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I advise against removing rift bolt, I would cut lavaspike first, rift bolt is slow, but there is alot of utility to be had. It dodges daze, and spell pierce but the two mana tax from spell pierce will often time be a time walk for your opponent, just wanted to point that out. Being cmc three its great against miracles, and dodges chalice on 1 and 2 which happens alot. It also targets a creature which is infintely awesome compared to lavaspike.
Three price of progress seems like the right number, I've learned that people are greedy when it comes to price and wait too long to try and net more damage, to me price is a 4 damage for 2 mana card, any more is icing on the cake, especially against wasteland decks. Don't wait too long to play this, and you'll be fine. I think three black vise is also the right number, its enough that you have a good chance to run into it on turn 1, when it is optimal. I suggest you test black vise some more before going with 4, turn 1 vise is amazing, turn two vise is dismal. Also like I said earlier, its a horrible top deck.
Basedfuster, so if your opponent has a goyf, or tasigur/angler/reanimated fatty on the board would you still play eidolon? What I'm getting at is that the eidolon play isn't just dependent on your board state, its very dependent on your opponent's boardstate as well. You play it when you have the advantage, on an empty boardstate you will have a 2/2 beatstick that will tax them for everyspell(this is why eidolons are 4 of main deck, while pillars are 1-2 sideboard) but if they have a bigger creature and can afford to not cast anything, while winning the race you've just put yourself in a very bad place.
Another pet peeve of mine is how everyone thinks Swiftspear encourages bad plays, the best way I've ever seen it put is that swiftspear gives all your spells a potential +1 damage through combat, if you cast it pre combat. This makes it very enticing to just dump your hand, but just because you could doesn't mean that you should, mastering burn, like any other legacy deck is about choosing the optimal time to play your spells, this is why burn isn't in the combo category. Swiftspear's advantage is viewed as a weakness because bad players can't control themselves. This is unacceptable.
On Swiftspear/eidolon interaction, I would rather have t 1 swiftspear into t2 eidolon(while opponents doesn't have anything that you need to kill) then nothing t1 into t2 eidolon. Why is this? because that is an awesome boardstate, putting more pressure on your opponent to remove eidolon. And since we can guarantee that they'll kill the eidolon first when they can, we'll be free to dump our hand for on swiftspear if the path is still clear.
I feel your pain when it comes to losing due to topdeck, but thats the nature of the beast, I would much rather be playing R/U burn but dropping a few pay checks to play a consistent burn deck does not fall under smart investments for me. volcs/snapcaster/brainstorm would make this deck alot better, but thats why burn is still semi budget legacy.
TL/DR? Go play combo.
If you're on the play then the odds of your opponent having one of the beaters you mentioned is nil. Obviously this changes when you're on the draw and I tend to actually side out some number of Eidolon against a fair deck if I'm on the draw. My statement assumes I'm on the play when turn 2 rolls around. I only really dump my hand to Swiftspears if it's loaded with Lava Spike or Searing Blaze.
There's actually 2 problems with playing U/R burn that don't involve budget. The first one is that the deck immediately loses its color consistency advantage and it is possible to actually get blown out by wasteland. Immunity to Wasteland is why the mono-red version is the most popular and the most successful burn variant in the format (excluding the U/R burn deck that just splashed blue to play Treasure Cruise before it got banned). The second problem is that even though the blue cards add to the deck somewhat, they also take away from the deck by not dealing damage to our opponents. That's a big reason why a lot of cards get excluded in the primer. If you want to go that route you might as well build U/R Delver instead because what that deck loses in speed it makes up for in Tempo and value since it gains access to many control options like Force of Will. U/R burn just loses speed but doesn't gain any tempo to make up for that loss.
I'm actually slowly working towards building storm right now as well, for the sake of comparison. I was gonna build omni-tell but DTT got banned. In any case, last time I played storm I lost game 3 despite having both of my hate cards so I'm kinda burnt out on the deck for the time being as well as wondering if it's still a powerful enough option to play. Locally the meta is skewed against burn as well, tons of combo, and some decks that can just naturally hate my deck out. There's some shardless BUG decks around but I dont think those good matchups are enough to justify burn.
I agree with your first paragraph, especially in the scenario you presented, I was kind of irritated that day(if you couldn't tell by the tone of the post) and i actually know people who suggest playing a certain card no matter the situation, so after reading your original post, that was where my response came from. We're on the same page as far as eidolon and swiftspear go. I side them out on the draw as well.
I should have clarified myself with my suggestion to play u/r burn, I really mean u/r delver as you said. I've tried my hand at it, but at that point I think I'd rather play rug if goyf wasn't such a bad creature that costed soo much.
I love burn I just can't stand the inconsistency of top decking. I think I might give sdt another go. Two copies won't hurt my clock very badly, and it's a step towards solving the top deck problem.
I agree with your first paragraph, especially in the scenario you presented, I was kind of irritated that day(if you couldn't tell by the tone of the post) and i actually know people who suggest playing a certain card no matter the situation, so after reading your original post, that was where my response came from. We're on the same page as far as eidolon and swiftspear go. I side them out on the draw as well.
I should have clarified myself with my suggestion to play u/r burn, I really mean u/r delver as you said. I've tried my hand at it, but at that point I think I'd rather play rug if goyf wasn't such a bad creature that costed soo much.
I love burn I just can't stand the inconsistency of top decking. I think I might give sdt another go. Two copies won't hurt my clock very badly, and it's a step towards solving the top deck problem.
Goyf is actually pretty undercosted for its average stats, and it's a decent clock when backed up with control like the kind RUG or BUG present.
I hate Goyf. Its the worse creature in every deck that plays it, and its usually the most expensive non land card. But lets not get into that.
I would cut 1 fireblast, and 1 price. Both are really powerful but you don't want to see more than 1 fb per game, and price can be played around. Top will increase your chances of seeing both of these cards, I would up the fetch count by two. I've been really happy with 3/3 fireblast/price of progress. Just food for thought.
I like your sideboard, I run pillars for combo hate, and exquisite firecraft over vexing shusher.
From my understanding is that burn has not been doing well since the introduction of Swiftspear. Burn was explosive when Eidolon was introduced but it sort of fizzled in less then 3 months... (oh that's when Swiftspear was introduced). When I'm talking about explosive, please look at the win records - players were having a hell of a time going around Eidolon because legacy is a low cc format. The only thing I had noticed that players want to make Swiftspear explosive and by doing that they are not locking second turn by playing Eidolon... Therefore burn players seemed to be giving opponents card play opportunity and burn looses because we only have top deck speed.
If you want burn to do good... Eidolon comes in play turn 2...
As for the deck post... Eidolon comes in play in turn 1!
Grey Orges lol (this is the reason why burn fails.) Vexing Devils is a replacement for the cards Figure of Destiny & Keldon Marauders. Vexing Devil is the only 4/3 CREATURE for 1 RED MANA! It works best when you need to slip a 4/3 creature in play without sacrificing mana resources. I don't need to spend mana/cards to build it up (FoD/Swiftspear) and it stays in play longer then Marauders.
I'm not sure why the deck has not been picked up... I would guess that players are too focused in playing brainstorm (numbers don't lie) over most other types but I'm assuming this. But it doesn't matter, the point is the deck did very well recently and it should be noted. It also did well recently when mono red burn has not been doing much.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Swiftspear doesn't prevent Eidolon from coming down turn 2 like it should, though attacking with Swiftspear for 1 twice isn't very good. If you have an issue with Swiftspear and Eidolon, don't play Swiftspear.
"Eidolon on turn 1" Eidolon doesn't come into play at all when it gets Forced, and then you're down 2 cards against a deck that's going to be drawing cards to refill their hand after that Force. Good luck.
Oh, ok, it's a replacement for cards that don't see play. Thanks for reasoning out why Vexing Devil doesn't see play, either.
You're being dishonest if you claim that deck did well because it had 4 Vexing Devils in it. It did well because it was taxing the snot out of everything with 11 Pyrostatic Pillars. There's another issue with focusing on a single deck and trying to draw the conclusion you're trying to draw. Let's look at mathematics. Imagine the x-y plane. Now point a single data point on it. Now draw a line through it. Having trouble figuring out what line to draw? That's because there is an infinite number of lines you can draw through that point. What's that mean? It's impossible to extrapolate from a single data point, but that's what you're doing when you claim "see? Devil did good once. Therefore Devil is good."
Because it's an extreme meta exploiting deck, not a deck any reasonable person would expect to do well outside the meta it's designed to exploit.
Sure it does... not too many are willing to take 2 damage per spell drop for a later hit.
And so is the opponent (down 2 cards).
Swiftspear is also playing the same replacement role.
There are 2 reasons why the devil works in this deck. First, it has a low mana curve and you can slip it into play without loosing mana resources. Second, it's a 4/3 beat stick that requires no extra mana/pump that works in a forced locked without adding additional damage to yourself.
Had you ever have 2 pillars is play?
This was during the height of Dig Through Time, right before Dig Through Time got banned. The format has not changed much since the banning.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
It's worse than that. As we've both said, it's more likely that Pillars and not Devils were instrumental to that deck's success. Therefore, my interpretation of his argument is, "Mono-Red Pillars did well once. Therefore, Devil belongs in an entirely different (traditional Burn) deck."
So if we're done with this for now, has anyone had any meaningful success with Black Vise? I was bearish on that too and would love to be proven wrong.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Who isn't willing to take 2? The Burn player? Then we wouldn't be playing Eidolon to begin with, except we are.
Did you skip the words "against a deck that's going to be drawing cards to refill their hand after that Force"? Last I checked, we don't play Ponder, Preordain, and Brainstorm. They do. Part of why I'm ok with getting a card Forced is that it costs me 1 and them 2 and they don't have a lot of time to refill, so we are ahead temporarily. If it costs us 2 and them 2, we're even temporarily until they draw more. Everything about this is bad for us.
Devil does not *work* in Burn. It was played in a time when there weren't better things to do for R. There are now better things to do for R. Giving your opponent a choice is bad. Devil is a super Lava Spike that deals 4 if played turn one and your opponent doesn't have removal. If they do, it deals zero. If it's late in the game, it deals zero. That's extraordinarily bad. It's not a "4/3 beat stick". It's a 4/3 that's going to either deal 4 once or do nothing.
Have I had two pillars in play? Yes, I've locked down games with two Eidolons before. I don't see how that says anything about Vexing Devil. The key to that meta-exploting deck is not the 4 Devils. It's the 11 Pillars. It's not even a Burn deck, it's 11Pillars.deck and you're just saying "Bolt: Check. Guide: Check. Mono-R: Check. Must be Burn". The Devils don't affect the deck in a positive way. Vexing Devil is bad in Burn. End of story. There's nothing else to say about it.
Curby, as for black vise I've tested it some, but didn't get anywhere for me. If you open with it it'll usually end up as a 1 2/3 bolt, but this advantage is negated by being a horrible topdeck, since burn has no library manipulation, this is a big no go for me. So for me it comes down to choice. Do you want more explosiveness or do you want sustainability/predictability?
Edit* Black vise is great against Miracles if your meta calls for it.
RIP Karn EDH
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
If you read my post from last page I might actually give up playing burn because of consistency issues. It's a great deck when you're drawing what you need and its firing on all cylinders but at the same time the trough is pretty low when you AREN'T drawing what you need (I'll draw land when I need more burn, or I won't draw sideboard cards, or I'll draw spells when I really need a third land to land Vortex, etc.), and the trough only gets lower the more turns your draw step ****s you over. I feel like at least 90% of my losses come from this lack of consistency that you'd probably get with a deck that runs Brainstorm. I'm not sure if this is actually the problem that keeps burn from being tier 1 or if I'm just the unluckiest person in the world but either way I definitely want to try a brainstorm deck out in the future just for the sake of comparison.
FYI, I always slam Eidolon turn 2 if possible regardless of my board state or if my T1 play was swiftspear.
What would you remove from my deck list for them?
// Lands
20 [UNH] Mountain
// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Goblin Guide
4 [KTK] Monastery Swiftspear
4 [JOU] Eidolon of the Great Revel
// Spells
4 [VI] Fireblast
4 [EX] Price of Progress
4 [TSP] Rift Bolt
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
4 [CHK] Lava Spike
4 [M11] Lightning Bolt
2 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex
2 [WWK] Searing Blaze
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [A] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 [DS] Dragon's Claw
SB: 3 [SHM] Smash to Smithereens
SB: 2 [SHM] Vexing Shusher
SB: 2 [MMA] Blood Moon
SB: 2 [CMD] Chaos Warp
H/W - Website
I do think 4 pop is too much (usually 3 is a good number because once players know your playing burn they will reduce the non-basic land drops - unless the deck needs non-basic lands). I do think the format is too fast for Rift Bolt, I know players like to keep rift bolt but drawing 2 in the opening hand sucks (I had dropped my rift bolts down to 2 - but that's up to you.)
On the other hand, you can drop 4 swiftspears (but that's up to you on that). Although, you can drop eidolon and use a black vise/swiftspear build. I have been testing a Swiftspear/Baubles build:
4 Goblin Guide
3 Hellspark Elemental
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Black Vise
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
2 Rift Bolt
3 Searing Blood
4 Fireblast
I'm still testing the deck out and the results are ok...
Have you ever tried Sensei's Divining Top? I've been playing with the card since summer and the results had been awesome! I understand this burn tread started against this things but this burn thread had been seriously outdated since the introduction of Eidolon.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
so I could do
-1 eidolon (cannot remove them all, is the only protection against combo / storm)
-1 rift bolt (still a good future bolt for 1)
-1 price of progress (normally lands 5 damages, on average)
+ 4 Black Vise, on a 61 decks or remove one more card
H/W - Website
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
Three price of progress seems like the right number, I've learned that people are greedy when it comes to price and wait too long to try and net more damage, to me price is a 4 damage for 2 mana card, any more is icing on the cake, especially against wasteland decks. Don't wait too long to play this, and you'll be fine. I think three black vise is also the right number, its enough that you have a good chance to run into it on turn 1, when it is optimal. I suggest you test black vise some more before going with 4, turn 1 vise is amazing, turn two vise is dismal. Also like I said earlier, its a horrible top deck.
Basedfuster, so if your opponent has a goyf, or tasigur/angler/reanimated fatty on the board would you still play eidolon? What I'm getting at is that the eidolon play isn't just dependent on your board state, its very dependent on your opponent's boardstate as well. You play it when you have the advantage, on an empty boardstate you will have a 2/2 beatstick that will tax them for everyspell(this is why eidolons are 4 of main deck, while pillars are 1-2 sideboard) but if they have a bigger creature and can afford to not cast anything, while winning the race you've just put yourself in a very bad place.
Another pet peeve of mine is how everyone thinks Swiftspear encourages bad plays, the best way I've ever seen it put is that swiftspear gives all your spells a potential +1 damage through combat, if you cast it pre combat. This makes it very enticing to just dump your hand, but just because you could doesn't mean that you should, mastering burn, like any other legacy deck is about choosing the optimal time to play your spells, this is why burn isn't in the combo category. Swiftspear's advantage is viewed as a weakness because bad players can't control themselves. This is unacceptable.
On Swiftspear/eidolon interaction, I would rather have t 1 swiftspear into t2 eidolon(while opponents doesn't have anything that you need to kill) then nothing t1 into t2 eidolon. Why is this? because that is an awesome boardstate, putting more pressure on your opponent to remove eidolon. And since we can guarantee that they'll kill the eidolon first when they can, we'll be free to dump our hand for on swiftspear if the path is still clear.
I feel your pain when it comes to losing due to topdeck, but thats the nature of the beast, I would much rather be playing R/U burn but dropping a few pay checks to play a consistent burn deck does not fall under smart investments for me. volcs/snapcaster/brainstorm would make this deck alot better, but thats why burn is still semi budget legacy.
TL/DR? Go play combo.
RIP Karn EDH
Before Black Vise was unbanned I've had a green/red deck Bauble Deck that had Gitaxian Probe & Hooting Mandrills... I've also used Lotus Pedals and Storm Entity... I do think Swiftspear and Storm Entity are an awesome partnership with a deck that uses lots of 0cc spells... Hooting Mandrills is sweet too...
Sadly, I'm starting to agree with the others that black vise is no longer as awesome as it used to be... Well, Black Vise still looks awesome in Stasis...
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Can't they still counter it when you remove last counter on the spell?
H/W - Website
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
When the counter is removed the player would have open mana to pay for such counterspells as Daze. And Counterbalance has a harder time to counter a 3cc spell (thought it's not impossible.)
My only complaint against Rift Bolt is multiple in the open hand.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
I will never ship a good hand for a possible Bridge hand, that can easilly remove with a bounce spell.
Modern: Grixis DS ; UR Phoenix ; Storm ; Burn
Standard: MonoRed ; Ral Spells ; UR Phoenix ; Izzet Drakes
Commander: Locust God
I agree with this, Miracles is a hard match up. You can't risk mulling a good hand for bridge, because they still run hard counters, as well as bounce. Besides, if they don't assemble the lock in time, a good hand could simply close out the game.
I usually side out goblin guide in this match up, top, and all their other cantrips makes it a really good chance that they will flip lands, and giving a control deck lands is horrible, especially since they run swords, and terminus to answer him.
RIP Karn EDH
I was actually talking about the combo version of Show & Tell (I din't know miracle played it)
But I'll try to trust my bridge-less hands a bit more; forgot it wasn't a hard lock since they can still bounce it
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
RIP Karn EDH
If you're on the play then the odds of your opponent having one of the beaters you mentioned is nil. Obviously this changes when you're on the draw and I tend to actually side out some number of Eidolon against a fair deck if I'm on the draw. My statement assumes I'm on the play when turn 2 rolls around. I only really dump my hand to Swiftspears if it's loaded with Lava Spike or Searing Blaze.
There's actually 2 problems with playing U/R burn that don't involve budget. The first one is that the deck immediately loses its color consistency advantage and it is possible to actually get blown out by wasteland. Immunity to Wasteland is why the mono-red version is the most popular and the most successful burn variant in the format (excluding the U/R burn deck that just splashed blue to play Treasure Cruise before it got banned). The second problem is that even though the blue cards add to the deck somewhat, they also take away from the deck by not dealing damage to our opponents. That's a big reason why a lot of cards get excluded in the primer. If you want to go that route you might as well build U/R Delver instead because what that deck loses in speed it makes up for in Tempo and value since it gains access to many control options like Force of Will. U/R burn just loses speed but doesn't gain any tempo to make up for that loss.
I'm actually slowly working towards building storm right now as well, for the sake of comparison. I was gonna build omni-tell but DTT got banned. In any case, last time I played storm I lost game 3 despite having both of my hate cards so I'm kinda burnt out on the deck for the time being as well as wondering if it's still a powerful enough option to play. Locally the meta is skewed against burn as well, tons of combo, and some decks that can just naturally hate my deck out. There's some shardless BUG decks around but I dont think those good matchups are enough to justify burn.
I should have clarified myself with my suggestion to play u/r burn, I really mean u/r delver as you said. I've tried my hand at it, but at that point I think I'd rather play rug if goyf wasn't such a bad creature that costed soo much.
I love burn I just can't stand the inconsistency of top decking. I think I might give sdt another go. Two copies won't hurt my clock very badly, and it's a step towards solving the top deck problem.
RIP Karn EDH
Goyf is actually pretty undercosted for its average stats, and it's a decent clock when backed up with control like the kind RUG or BUG present.
I might try 2 SDT actually, I just don't know what I'd cut for it. Here's my list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/11-06-15-0-to-100-real-quick/
I would cut 1 fireblast, and 1 price. Both are really powerful but you don't want to see more than 1 fb per game, and price can be played around. Top will increase your chances of seeing both of these cards, I would up the fetch count by two. I've been really happy with 3/3 fireblast/price of progress. Just food for thought.
I like your sideboard, I run pillars for combo hate, and exquisite firecraft over vexing shusher.
RIP Karn EDH