I have been digging a bit into older tournament results and top decklists. Seems like the Omnitell player does well fairly regularly and there are 1-2 ANT Storm players.
Fallout seems like a somewhat decent card considering the D&T decks and Shardless BUG so i would like to keep it as a 1-of. I do not have access to a 4th Exquisite Firecraft unfortunately, if i had i would play it in that slot....
DNT can play around Fallout with Mother of Runes and Flickerwisp, and Smashes are better in that matchup anyway. I'd probably suggest siding in 1-2 Smashes or Searing Blaze against Shardless BUG to remove blockers to be honest. Again, you have a lot of 2 of's in your board which isn't ideal given that you have no library manipulation. Given the information you've given me about your meta (namely that there's only one Show and Tell player, you have DNT/shardless BUG/Storm, and you don't seem to have any decks that rely on graveyards), I'd suggest a sideboard like this:
I've given you 2 flex slots that can be 2 copies of any one card based on your needs. For example, if you really want to keep Ashen Rider, run 2 of him and also board in 4 Red Blast, so you can bring in a total of 6 cards against the Show and Tell player instead of 2. I feel like this board gives you the most coverage (these cards can almost always be brought in against multiple matchups except maybe Mindbreak Trap), and gives you these cards in enough quantities so you have the best chance of drawing your sideboard cards in games 2 and 3. Nothing sucks more than boarding in answers for a deck and losing game 2 anyway because you didn't draw your answer. I'm also surprised you have access to records like these on a local level, most local stores don't keep records like this unless it's a GP trial, PTQ, or SCG IQ.
Keep in mind, this board is created on the premise that there aren't any graveyard decks in your meta. If this isn't the case or GY decks start cropping up later, I would adjust the board so you can run 4 copies of Tormod's Crypt.
I get your point with the 2-ofs but they are not "really" 2-ofs?
Pyrostatic Pillar is basically Eidolon 5+6
Searing Blaze are Blaze 3+4
I get your point about the Ashen Riders and the Fallout, that is legit. I do not own any Mindbreak Traps unfortunately. I planned on running the pillars against storm since they can't combo off without killing themselves. I know they board in Abrupt Decay but playing them slows them down quite a bit, doesn't it?
Your one of Fallout, 2 of Ashen Rider, and 2 of Tormod's Crypt are really 2-ofs though in your list which is what I was focusing on. I prefer Mindbreak Trap over Pillar because it prevents turn 1 combo from beating us before we can play Eidolon, which is what I'm really worried about with this matchup. Sure, they can duress the trap out of our hand, but if they play a turn 1 Duress, they're not comboing off on turn 1 anyway.
Hi everybody. I'm going to be playing in a Legacy Open when it comes around in April, and so far the list I think I'm going to run is Burn. I'm thinking of a fairly stock list for the main, but sb I'm thinking of trying a different plan than usual. After looking over all the data and lists of Legacy events for close to the past year, I'm thinking of going with something a little more control/midrange. My ideas so far are adding up to 4 more land in the sb to enable things like Koth of the Hammer or Chandra, Torch of Defiance to give the deck a bit more playing power in the mid-later game against some of the more grindy decks. I know some lists run a couple Barbarian Ring main, has anyone tested Shivan Gorge? While it does only tap for colorless, it is a repeatable source of damage as opposed to the Ring's one time use. Also, while it is extremely narrow, has anyone played with Mudhole? It could be good in a very Lands heavy meta. Also curious about people's thoughts about Molten Influence.
Hi everybody. I'm going to be playing in a Legacy Open when it comes around in April, and so far the list I think I'm going to run is Burn. I'm thinking of a fairly stock list for the main, but sb I'm thinking of trying a different plan than usual. After looking over all the data and lists of Legacy events for close to the past year, I'm thinking of going with something a little more control/midrange. My ideas so far are adding up to 4 more land in the sb to enable things like Koth of the Hammer or Chandra, Torch of Defiance to give the deck a bit more playing power in the mid-later game against some of the more grindy decks. I know some lists run a couple Barbarian Ring main, has anyone tested Shivan Gorge? While it does only tap for colorless, it is a repeatable source of damage as opposed to the Ring's one time use. Also, while it is extremely narrow, has anyone played with Mudhole? It could be good in a very Lands heavy meta. Also curious about people's thoughts about Molten Influence.
Burn isn't a midrange deck and it shouldn't be played or built as a midrange deck. The slow grindy decks are the kind of decks that Burn can already beat. It's the super-fast combo decks that Burn is weak to. It's a waste of space to put 4 Mountains and two planeswalkers in your sideboard. You want some kind of grave hate for reanimator and dredge. You want some Blazes for creature decks. Ring is very rarely used and its only purpose is to get in 2 damage against Miracles and the reason it isn't used is that Wasteland is no longer dead against Burn. Shivan Gorge is bad because it helps you cast exactly 1 card in your maindeck: Price of Progress (you never pay 6 for Fireblast and you rarely pay 3 for Rift Bolt). Shivan Gorge is therefore a dead land that gets hit by Wasteland, it's a wasted card. Your weaknesses are fast combo, and Mudhole doesn't help there. Molten Influence is a punisher effect and your opponent will always choose what you don't want, which will often mean they lose 4 life to get their game winning stuff on board and you lose the game anyway. If you want counters against blue, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are legitimate candidates.
Played Burn at GP Louisville and went 5-4 to barely miss day 2. Sucked missing day 2 but same record as my last w big events so I'm very close. I used the 60 cards I posted recently, but added a 61st card for 1 maindeck Exquisite Firecraft.
Round 1: Casey Bloodworth, Sneak and Show. On the draw
Loss, 1-2
Casey flew out from SLC bc Legacy. Game 1 I sit down and promptly mulligan to 4. Seriously? Lots of mulligans and bad dice rolls this weekend. He destroyed me pretty quickly game 1 w no real surprises thanks to a face full of Emrakul. Game 2 showed Flusterstorm and Griselbrand from Guide flips. One 2 lands staring at my Vortex and knowing even w another land it won't ever see play so I just say to myself "please play S&T". Next turn he does and puts Griselbrand into play. He's on 5 so he can't even afford to use Griselbrand and just has a nice 7/7. Fire last next turn lets him die to Vortex. Game 3 was another face full of spaghetti w a Griseldaddy chaser. Fun not, I ran into him after round 7 and we were both 4-3. After beating me he got pounded 3 rounds in a row before winning 3 straight.
Round 2: Mitchell Anderson, Threshold. 0-1 overall. On the draw
Win, 2-1
We had a fun 3 game series. He had driven up from Charlotte w/at least 11 other folks in a few cars. Big turn out for Charlotte, considering I ran into someone else who knew no one in Charlotte as he had recently moved there and he had driven up too. Not a lot in particular stands out about any of the 3 games. The game I lost was the middle game I’m pretty sure and it was largely on the back of every time he cast a Goyf it was a minimum of a 4/5. I guess that size of Goyf and 20/20 Marit Lages were the reasons I had been considering a single Chaos Warp in the board Eventually I ground him out and moved on.
Round 3: Kevin Klipfel, Miracles, 1-1 overall. On the draw
Win, 2-0
Kevin had been sitting near me during the player’s meeting. I also sat next to a guy who I sat near at GP Indy and ended up playing that day. Kevin and I both already knew what decks to expect from each other, so that was fine. Kevin wasn’t respecting the power of Price of Progress at all in game 1. His first 2 fetches were both Tundra and that allowed Price to help seal his fate. This is one of the reasons I have 3 Firecraft in the board and they all came in. I don’t know if I ever had a game where I saw more than 1 show up all day and I never actually cast one against Miracles I don’t think. Kinda funny. Game 2 was also not very long. I had a really rough hand for him to deal with and got it done pretty quickly.
Round 4: Paul Tartaglio, Turbo-Depths, 2-1 overall. On the draw
Loss, 0-2
Ugh. I managed to kill a Hexmage in game 1. That was really about as good as it got for me. I think in Game 2 I was going to be able to take him from 14 to 6 before he would swing w/Marit Lage, but I was ever even close to worrying his life total in either game to be honest. Guy at the table next to us was in Louisville from Tokyo bc Legacy. Crazy how far some folks were traveling for the event.
Interlude:
So far I’m now at a record of 2-2 and wondering how many more of my bad matchups will end up in my way before the day is done. I’m counting S&S and Turbo Depths as the bad matchups. I’m generally fine vs Miracles. I also met Brandon Burton and his mom between rounds, sat down and chatted w/them for about 10 minutes. She is super nice. Brandon didn’t talk a whole lot, but I love seeing them out playing like that. I had played Burn and missed day 2 at GP Indy when he won, so I had wanted to congratulate him on that one. I believe he was actually on Sneak & Show himself this weekend.
Round 5: Greg Ivey, Shardless Sultai, 2-2 overall. On the draw
Win, 2-1
Greg was down from Chicago w/his wife, who was apparently doing better in the tournament than he was. His Sultai deck was very solid. He hymned me in 2 different games and each time he managed to knock a land out of my hand. The first time it was only the second land I had been holding, so that set me back. If I had kept that land, he would have been dead in pretty short order. The 3rd game I had actually decided to work around Hymn and hope to not draw many lands and kept a 4 lander. His Hymn nailed 2 mountains, which was absolutely perfect. We had a really great back and forth going and playing against Burn is always a stressful event for him b/c he can go down such big chunks of life in such a short time frame.
I had managed to Pithing Needle his DRS during the SB games and at one point he had an army of 3 of them left as very unimpressive 1/2 threats The final turn of game 3 was very funny. His wife had won her match and was chatting w/us as we finished up. He was at 3 life w/a Shardless Agent, Goyf and DRS all on the table. I had a Rift Bolt about to come off of suspend and zero cards in hand. I announced the suspend trigger and in response he cast Abrupt Decay, killing his own Agent. This allowed him to gain 2 life w/DRS to stay alive as he had already earned another 6 life or so from DRS activations and was still barely clinging to the game. This left him at 2 life. Busy upkeep step had distracted me. I comment that I don’t have any cards and don’t have much else to do, when his wife blurts out that I haven’t drawn for turn yet. I say “Oh yeah, thanks”, draw, then say “Goblin Guide, swing for lethal?” and get the handshake He wasn’t mad about it and the picked back and forth a bit and I told her “he still loves you, he just doesn’t like you very much right now” heh. She was 6-2 heading into the last round of the day and I didn’t see her after to find out. I think he had ended up dropping before that.
Interlude:
While I’m walking up to the results table I remind myself there are 4 more rounds and I have 1 loss I can give, and I can do this. I’m ready to do this.
Round 6: Phillip Gallagher, Death and Taxes, 3-2 overall. On the PLAY (Finally!!)
Loss, 2-1
Phillip and I had a very fun 3 rounds against each other. I killed a T1 Mom 2 different games and got a very painful reminder of exactly how painful Batterskull+Jitte and Batterskull+Sword of War and Peace can be. A well timed Sanctum Prelate for 2 stranded 2 Smash and a Searing Blood in my hand. I eventually Bolted it, then killed a germ token before finishing him off. The real problem w/this round was that I didn’t mulligan my hand in game 3. I don’t even remember exactly what it was at this point, but I think it had too much land and having too much land and then proceeding to draw 3 more over the course of the game was just brutal. This loss is entirely on me and I think if I had mulliganed that I could have carried the round. Really upset w myself over this one, but I definitely learned from it. Oh yeah, he runs thrabenuniversity.com, so expect to see his tournament report posted soon as well. Curious what he has to say about our match.
Round 7: James Mabry, Storm, 3-3 overall. On the draw (again)
Win, 2-1
James and I both play at Through the Decades here in Louisville and we have played a lot of games against each other. I sometimes play around w/Sac Land Tendrils and we played about 10 games in 20 minutes one night playing Sac Land vs regular Storm heh. I actually won some of those games amusingly enough. Anyway, game 1 I got him too low too quickly. T2 Eidolon sealed this one real fast. A judge was passing by so he did a quick double check that LED, LED, Infernal Tutor (sac for 3 red and 3 black in response), cast Tendrils would kill him before any of the life gain occurred. We had both been pretty sure of that line beforehand, but I was fine getting the confirmation. Game 2 I had sided in 2 Pithing Needles and ended up getting both out, blanking Scalding Tarn and Polluted Delta. He told me those were bad and to side them back out for game 3 heh. He had cast a bunch of Goblins and just turned them sideways till I was dead w/my 2 Guides blocking. I was stupid here too and after his initial swing w/all 12 I didn’t return swing and kill him. Doh! Really annoying to have the deck crap out and flood like that when there was only 19 land. Game 3 was another T2 Eidolon which eventually died to an Abrupt Decay. I got into topdeck mode for the kill here too. First time was a mountain, leaving me to just swing w/Swiftspear for a few turns in a tow, but the 3rd time I drew a Lava Spike to seal the deal.
Round 8: Stephen Nguyen, Miracles, 4-3 overallI. On the play for only the second time all day.
Win, 2-0
Stephen traveled from Louisiana for the event and was a lot of fun to play against. Game 1 was pretty typical Burn beats. Large chunks of life every turn and not enough ways for him to stop things. Game 2 was a lot of back and forth. He Terminused early and I had held back the 2nd Guide on purpose instead of going all in on creatures, so I didn’t really care. I had a bolt for Mentor when he was tapped out and had no Force too. Multiple Swiftspear were swinging too and he was floating a Wear/Tear to help counter things after STPing a Swiftspear. Eventually tho he had no choice but to shuffle and lost his blocking spells. A series of suspended Rift Bolts followed by other spells got him low enough eventually that the Fireblast had no answer. These games were also odd b/c I kept 1 landers both games w/lots of spells that would play and in both cases got stuck on one land for several turns before finally finding more land. Luckily Miracles doesn’t do a very good job of punishing slow development.
Round 9: Vanessa Sudendorf, Jund, 5-3 overall. On the play
Vanessa was in from the eastern part of Virginia, I’m guessing she got lucky and got a flight before the bad weather hit. We had a good game with a lot of back and forth. Goyf is still annoying to deal with. I was feeling really good about the match and we went into game 3 and I had no lands. And 1 land w/a terrible mix of 2 and 3cc spells w/nothing castable. And no lands. So now I’m on a 4 that consists of 2 mountain and 2 Rift Bolt. I’m annoyed that I’ve had so much mulliganing today and we are chatting and the next thing I know I’ve forgotten my scry, suspended a Rift Bolt and passed turn. I realized during her first turn that I hadn’t scried. I pointed it out that I had forgotten to scry and that I hadn’t see anything yet, but that we were past that point. She agreed I had and we moved on to her duressing away my 2nd Rift Bolt. My next card? Rift Bolt #3! Crazy. Anyway, eventually I’m sitting on a hand of Exquisite Firecraft, Fireblast and Lightning Bolt and she is at 12 life. She only has 2 lands and has a 3rd fetch in play for multiple turns. I’m quietly Jedi Mind Tricking her into fetching so I can Bolt her EOT, then cast Firecraft and Fireblast for the win. Facing down a Goyf and a couple of DRS it’s a tough board. Luckily she doesn’t have the pair of BBEs she used on me the game she had already won earlier. I drew an Eidolon the turn before what ended up being my final one. She Decayed the Eidolon which bumped the Goyf to lethal size and I could only Bolt and Fireblast to drop her to 3. There was definitely a greater than normal amount of land on my side of the board at the end of the game too.
Overall I had a great day and except for a few goofs, felt I played pretty well. My opponents were all great. No major misunderstandings, everyone was cool, no one was salty after losing, etc. Vanessa felt really terrible w/me losing after that mulligan and i hope she did all right today. A couple of decision different or even my deck just liking me a little better and I would have been playing today too. Definitely hope for more quality Legacy events as this one was a blast.
I also got to meet lots of players I wanted to and to get a lot of cool signatures on cards. 4 Glistener Elf were signed by Tom Ross and a lot of things signed by the artists. The best part (for this deck anyway) was getting 6 beta and 2 Korean 4th Ed (but still original art) Mountains. These joined the Lava Spikes I got signed by Mark Tedin at the Sealed GP that was here in Louisville in September.
I hope everyone enjoys the report and can take something away from it.
Edit: For fun I went back today to look at everyone's final standing. The D&T guy I played against actually ended up in the money right above Cuneo
Me: 710
Casey Bloodworth: 894
Mitchell Anderson: 520
Kevin Klipfel: 1485
Paul Tartaglio: 397
Greg Ivey: 1337 (Wife Brenna made 554)
Phillip Gallagher: 48
James Mabry: 1183
Stephen Nguyen: 1006
Vanessa Sudendorf: 306
Genuinely curious why you say Turbo-Depths isn't a positive match up?
I've never played against the deck. How consistent are they at assembling the combo? Seems like we would be more consistent at killing T4, since it doesn't appear they interact much outside of discard. They also have to untap and attack, since the combo doesn't kill the turn they assemble it. Being on the play seems very good for us.
Either way, I'm getting more and more pro Ensnaring Bridge as I play with it. For example, won a game through Batterskull+Jitte from D&T because of Bridge. Seems like it would be excellent vs Turbo Depths if you can sneak it past their discard.
The first reason is that my build is more focused on the Control aspect of the game, as I feel that Legacy's metagame of fair decks and durdly Blue decks favoured this style of Burn deck. (moreso at that time, although still somewhat prevalent now)
The second reason is that most decks in a typical Legacy metagame are more easily capable of dealing with a Swiftspear than another Burn spell. This is either due to your opponent having a better board state (Eldrazi have large creatures to block your Swiftspear, Death and Taxes/Delver/other creature decks obsolete Swiftspear surprisingly quickly), or Swiftspear itself only being a good card when you're already ahead on board state/tempo.
Does this not apply to Goblin Guide as well? I'm curious if anyone has tried just eidolon and lavamancer.
Guide is certainly les good against creature decks than a burn spell, but the difference is that it's always a 2/2 and Swiftspear requires you to play burn spells proactively rather than reactively. You can still play your control game while you try to poke them for 2 a couple times before you use it as a blocker after it's outclassed. It's far easier to get more than a Lightning Bolt of damage out of Guide than Swiftspear, and if you do that then Guide has done its job.
I've been running for a week or longer now with no swiftspear, and I definitely think its the right call.
My question now though is what options do we turn to in the main or side for these grindy value decks (miracles, Shardless/TNN bug). I've been running firecraft in the main but have not found it especially amazing and have really missed vortex against DRS. In addition I just do not like having more then 2x of a 3cmc clogging things up.
What are some other options? Is GLM effective vs these decks? It seems that together they make up 25% of the metagame.
Edit: I know there are strong reasons to not play non basics or even fetches, but is there anything from a splash that could help? If I was running a GLM build I could see having the 10-12 fetches and that would make it easy to slot in a 1-2x dual land for a splash in SB if it mean something really powerful in those matches up or combo which is the main weak point. I mean I can win right now vs miracles/bug but combo seems like its a 95/5 matchup in their favor.
Grim Lavamancer is not good against the removal heavy decks like Miracles and BGx. They interact enough to kill it pretty quickly. Grim is for decks like Elves and such where they are less likely to remove it.
Most decks play 8-12 fetches anyway as Grim and Searing Blaze enablers. Splashes are risky because of Wasteland. One of the only reasons to run a splash is to have enchantment removal. But outside of the Enchantress matchup, you don't really need it.
Looking to get back into 1v1 magic after a long run as a mostly EDH, occasional drafter. I started with a casual burn deck and I recently discovered Top was Legacy Burn viable, so I'm getting sucked back in.
I'm on a list that got mentioned a page or so back, inspired by a well-placed SCG Classic finish, decklist below
I'd love if anyone would put a list of cards they board in and out (in their decks, I don't expect you do so for mine) against the most common match ups. I just played a couple matches against Standstill and OmniTell where I won the pre-board and lost the post-, so I can definitely use the help!
Deck looks good!
But I think Top is so underwhelming in Burn, I played against one or another burn that had it, it looked like a deck that wants to finish as fast as possible, but with a midrange card as the Top. When will Top be actually better than I don't know, Monastery Swiftspear or another burn spell, maybe on theSB one is okay depending on the matchup, but on the main it looks clunky and takes to a very different game that you actually want to execute. I know some players have used it, but I've seen a SCG match that he ran out of cards and had a Top in play, he didn't draw fetches because it would be a card loss so he couldn't shuffle the top 3 cards, and he was stuck trying to get burn spells from the top without shuffling, it looked very clunky at that game.
So what are our best cards vs miracles? Vortex and EF?
Pretty much. If you like Barbarian Ring, you could play one or two there. It's hilarious when you keep it in hand then drop it for the kill. Miracles players are notorious at having a low life total before stabilizing. Needle is another card to use against them, naming Top. Pyrostatic Pillar can be brought in because their digging for their combo hurts at every cantrip. If you really hate Miracles like I do, you could even have some number of Vexing Shusher in your side.
I don't think Affinity is as prevalent these days and I like the bolt tacked onto Smash, so I brought that in and the Spree out. Blue is the most common colour in the format and the look on a blue player's face when you counter their spell or destroy their Counterbalance is delicious. Finally, Cage is handy against any reanimation deck.
I've found Top a little disappointing so far, but I like the synergy with fetches. If I do take it out of the main, I feel like I'd probably cut it entirely. If I make the switch, I'd probably drop all the GLM and Top for a playset of Swiftspear and switching 1 Vortex from main to side.
Hello Burn people.....how's it going?
Ive played Magic for decades, mostly B and U, but Ive always had a burn deck of some kind or another. Lately Ive been appreciating the straightforward style of the burn beck more and more.
Im sure that conventional wisdom would say to loose the Browbeats and a Mountain or 2, but Ive always found that my burn decks run out of steam around turn 3, and I almost always loose if they go past turn 4 or 5. Im trying to find a way to mitigate that. Instead of trying to make my first few turns more powerful, Im trying to make the deck stick around longer.
Browbeat- i know that whoever im playing against will always pick the option that is worse for me, but ive played thousands of magic games in my life and i really cant remember a single time when my opponent loosing 5 life was ever bad for me. I also cant remember too many times when drawing 3 cards was bad for me.
The extra Mountain (or 2). During a game, Id really always rather have 1 too many lands then 1 too few. Also, a few extra Mountains lets me play Fireblast a little earlier, and still have some lands to use on my next turn.
Searing Blaze. Most of the people i play against have at least some creatures in their decks. Even if the creatures arent some awesome must kill card or are too big to kill with 3 damage, they still count as a target and i get the 3 damage to my opponent. That being said, this is kind of my "flex" spot. Usually I play with 4 Searing Blaze but sometimes i switch some or all of them to Smash to Smithereens, or Skullcrack, depending on how things are going from one week to the next.
Monastery Swiftspear. I think this card is slightly worse version of Goblin Guide, which still makes it a mighty fine card. Turn 1 Goblin Guide is the best red opening ever (obviously thats just an opinion). Im never expecting any of my creatures to stick around very long. Im hoping to get to use them twice, but i cant really complain if i only get to use them once. Obviously Swiftspear isnt as good on turn 1 as the goblin, it gets better as time goes on, but so do my opponents defenses......
I dont have as much time for magic as i used to, im still kind of evaluating this card. right now im treating it as 2 extra Goblin Guides, and hoping i can play the goblin on turn 1 and the swiftspear a little later on.
A general guideline that ive found helpful in most situations has been that if i cant or dont want to play a particular card on my first or second turn, i usually dont want 4 of them in the deck. Ive made an exception for Fireblast because im never sorry to see even 2 of these at once.
Grim lavamancer is a bad first turn play, hes just hanging out hoping to not get killed for a few turns. Even on turn 2 i usually have better things to do with the mana.
Price of Progress. Even though I can play it and get value out of it as early as turn 2, i always want to get at least 4 damage out of it, and hopefully more. Part of that is up to my opponent, sometimes on the second or third turn they just dont have that many non basics out.
the rest of my card choices seem pretty self explanatory...
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
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My decks. Feel free to make suggestions. The Precious B___U___G___R___W
You should consider adding 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel, it's amazing against storm, and great against pretty much everything else
As for running out of steam, I would recommend Sulfuric Vortex; dealing damage every turn + stopping life gain will usually help you in the grindy games
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"What's your plan?" Gideon asked.
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
ive considered Sulfuric Vortex, im assuming you would also recommend taking out the Browbeats to make space?
Eidolon of the Great Revel. Ive been reading about this card everywhere. Ill confess, I cant figure out how this card is good for this deck. Almost every spell in the deck would damage me as i cast it. out of all my decks, this one has the most low cost spells.....what am i missing?
thanks.
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My decks. Feel free to make suggestions. The Precious B___U___G___R___W
DNT can play around Fallout with Mother of Runes and Flickerwisp, and Smashes are better in that matchup anyway. I'd probably suggest siding in 1-2 Smashes or Searing Blaze against Shardless BUG to remove blockers to be honest. Again, you have a lot of 2 of's in your board which isn't ideal given that you have no library manipulation. Given the information you've given me about your meta (namely that there's only one Show and Tell player, you have DNT/shardless BUG/Storm, and you don't seem to have any decks that rely on graveyards), I'd suggest a sideboard like this:
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Exquisite Firecraft
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 flex slots of your choosing
I've given you 2 flex slots that can be 2 copies of any one card based on your needs. For example, if you really want to keep Ashen Rider, run 2 of him and also board in 4 Red Blast, so you can bring in a total of 6 cards against the Show and Tell player instead of 2. I feel like this board gives you the most coverage (these cards can almost always be brought in against multiple matchups except maybe Mindbreak Trap), and gives you these cards in enough quantities so you have the best chance of drawing your sideboard cards in games 2 and 3. Nothing sucks more than boarding in answers for a deck and losing game 2 anyway because you didn't draw your answer. I'm also surprised you have access to records like these on a local level, most local stores don't keep records like this unless it's a GP trial, PTQ, or SCG IQ.
Keep in mind, this board is created on the premise that there aren't any graveyard decks in your meta. If this isn't the case or GY decks start cropping up later, I would adjust the board so you can run 4 copies of Tormod's Crypt.
Pyrostatic Pillar is basically Eidolon 5+6
Searing Blaze are Blaze 3+4
I get your point about the Ashen Riders and the Fallout, that is legit. I do not own any Mindbreak Traps unfortunately. I planned on running the pillars against storm since they can't combo off without killing themselves. I know they board in Abrupt Decay but playing them slows them down quite a bit, doesn't it?
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.
Burn isn't a midrange deck and it shouldn't be played or built as a midrange deck. The slow grindy decks are the kind of decks that Burn can already beat. It's the super-fast combo decks that Burn is weak to. It's a waste of space to put 4 Mountains and two planeswalkers in your sideboard. You want some kind of grave hate for reanimator and dredge. You want some Blazes for creature decks. Ring is very rarely used and its only purpose is to get in 2 damage against Miracles and the reason it isn't used is that Wasteland is no longer dead against Burn. Shivan Gorge is bad because it helps you cast exactly 1 card in your maindeck: Price of Progress (you never pay 6 for Fireblast and you rarely pay 3 for Rift Bolt). Shivan Gorge is therefore a dead land that gets hit by Wasteland, it's a wasted card. Your weaknesses are fast combo, and Mudhole doesn't help there. Molten Influence is a punisher effect and your opponent will always choose what you don't want, which will often mean they lose 4 life to get their game winning stuff on board and you lose the game anyway. If you want counters against blue, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are legitimate candidates.
Genuinely curious why you say Turbo-Depths isn't a positive match up?
T3 and T4 swinging w a 20/20 that I couldn't disrupt.
Turn three and four is usually when they're dead.
Either way, I'm getting more and more pro Ensnaring Bridge as I play with it. For example, won a game through Batterskull+Jitte from D&T because of Bridge. Seems like it would be excellent vs Turbo Depths if you can sneak it past their discard.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Does this not apply to Goblin Guide as well? I'm curious if anyone has tried just eidolon and lavamancer.
GRWNaya BurnGRW
GRWJundGRW
CAffinityC
UGUG EldraziUG
GRWBushwhacker ZooGRW
UBWRAd NauseamUBWR
Legacy
RBurnR
UBSneak & ShowUB
CEldrazi AggroC
My question now though is what options do we turn to in the main or side for these grindy value decks (miracles, Shardless/TNN bug). I've been running firecraft in the main but have not found it especially amazing and have really missed vortex against DRS. In addition I just do not like having more then 2x of a 3cmc clogging things up.
What are some other options? Is GLM effective vs these decks? It seems that together they make up 25% of the metagame.
Edit: I know there are strong reasons to not play non basics or even fetches, but is there anything from a splash that could help? If I was running a GLM build I could see having the 10-12 fetches and that would make it easy to slot in a 1-2x dual land for a splash in SB if it mean something really powerful in those matches up or combo which is the main weak point. I mean I can win right now vs miracles/bug but combo seems like its a 95/5 matchup in their favor.
GRWNaya BurnGRW
GRWJundGRW
CAffinityC
UGUG EldraziUG
GRWBushwhacker ZooGRW
UBWRAd NauseamUBWR
Legacy
RBurnR
UBSneak & ShowUB
CEldrazi AggroC
Most decks play 8-12 fetches anyway as Grim and Searing Blaze enablers. Splashes are risky because of Wasteland. One of the only reasons to run a splash is to have enchantment removal. But outside of the Enchantress matchup, you don't really need it.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
GRWNaya BurnGRW
GRWJundGRW
CAffinityC
UGUG EldraziUG
GRWBushwhacker ZooGRW
UBWRAd NauseamUBWR
Legacy
RBurnR
UBSneak & ShowUB
CEldrazi AggroC
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Looking to get back into 1v1 magic after a long run as a mostly EDH, occasional drafter. I started with a casual burn deck and I recently discovered Top was Legacy Burn viable, so I'm getting sucked back in.
I'm on a list that got mentioned a page or so back, inspired by a well-placed SCG Classic finish, decklist below
1x Arid Mesa
1x Barbarian Ring
4x Bloodstained Mire
8x Mountain
1x Scalding Tarn
4x Wooded Foothills
Creature (10)
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Goblin Guide
2x Grim Lavamancer
4x Fireblast
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Price of Progress
2x Searing Blaze
Sorcery (14)
4x Chain Lightning
2x Exquisite Firecraft
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
Enchantment (2)
2x Sulfuric Vortex
1x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Exquisite Firecraft
1x Grim Lavamancer
3x Pyrostatic Pillar
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Searing Blaze
1x Searing Blood
3x Shattering Spree
1x Vexing Shusher
I'd love if anyone would put a list of cards they board in and out (in their decks, I don't expect you do so for mine) against the most common match ups. I just played a couple matches against Standstill and OmniTell where I won the pre-board and lost the post-, so I can definitely use the help!
But I think Top is so underwhelming in Burn, I played against one or another burn that had it, it looked like a deck that wants to finish as fast as possible, but with a midrange card as the Top. When will Top be actually better than I don't know, Monastery Swiftspear or another burn spell, maybe on theSB one is okay depending on the matchup, but on the main it looks clunky and takes to a very different game that you actually want to execute. I know some players have used it, but I've seen a SCG match that he ran out of cards and had a Top in play, he didn't draw fetches because it would be a card loss so he couldn't shuffle the top 3 cards, and he was stuck trying to get burn spells from the top without shuffling, it looked very clunky at that game.
Pretty much. If you like Barbarian Ring, you could play one or two there. It's hilarious when you keep it in hand then drop it for the kill. Miracles players are notorious at having a low life total before stabilizing. Needle is another card to use against them, naming Top. Pyrostatic Pillar can be brought in because their digging for their combo hurts at every cantrip. If you really hate Miracles like I do, you could even have some number of Vexing Shusher in your side.
In
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 REB
1 Pyroblast
1 Smash to Smithereens
Out
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Shattering Spree
I don't think Affinity is as prevalent these days and I like the bolt tacked onto Smash, so I brought that in and the Spree out. Blue is the most common colour in the format and the look on a blue player's face when you counter their spell or destroy their Counterbalance is delicious. Finally, Cage is handy against any reanimation deck.
I've found Top a little disappointing so far, but I like the synergy with fetches. If I do take it out of the main, I feel like I'd probably cut it entirely. If I make the switch, I'd probably drop all the GLM and Top for a playset of Swiftspear and switching 1 Vortex from main to side.
Ive played Magic for decades, mostly B and U, but Ive always had a burn deck of some kind or another. Lately Ive been appreciating the straightforward style of the burn beck more and more.
Here's what Ive got so far:
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Fireblast
4 Searing Blaze
4 Goblin Guide
2 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Price of Progress
3 Browbeat
Im sure that conventional wisdom would say to loose the Browbeats and a Mountain or 2, but Ive always found that my burn decks run out of steam around turn 3, and I almost always loose if they go past turn 4 or 5. Im trying to find a way to mitigate that. Instead of trying to make my first few turns more powerful, Im trying to make the deck stick around longer.
Browbeat- i know that whoever im playing against will always pick the option that is worse for me, but ive played thousands of magic games in my life and i really cant remember a single time when my opponent loosing 5 life was ever bad for me. I also cant remember too many times when drawing 3 cards was bad for me.
The extra Mountain (or 2). During a game, Id really always rather have 1 too many lands then 1 too few. Also, a few extra Mountains lets me play Fireblast a little earlier, and still have some lands to use on my next turn.
Searing Blaze. Most of the people i play against have at least some creatures in their decks. Even if the creatures arent some awesome must kill card or are too big to kill with 3 damage, they still count as a target and i get the 3 damage to my opponent. That being said, this is kind of my "flex" spot. Usually I play with 4 Searing Blaze but sometimes i switch some or all of them to Smash to Smithereens, or Skullcrack, depending on how things are going from one week to the next.
Monastery Swiftspear. I think this card is slightly worse version of Goblin Guide, which still makes it a mighty fine card. Turn 1 Goblin Guide is the best red opening ever (obviously thats just an opinion). Im never expecting any of my creatures to stick around very long. Im hoping to get to use them twice, but i cant really complain if i only get to use them once. Obviously Swiftspear isnt as good on turn 1 as the goblin, it gets better as time goes on, but so do my opponents defenses......
I dont have as much time for magic as i used to, im still kind of evaluating this card. right now im treating it as 2 extra Goblin Guides, and hoping i can play the goblin on turn 1 and the swiftspear a little later on.
A general guideline that ive found helpful in most situations has been that if i cant or dont want to play a particular card on my first or second turn, i usually dont want 4 of them in the deck. Ive made an exception for Fireblast because im never sorry to see even 2 of these at once.
Grim lavamancer is a bad first turn play, hes just hanging out hoping to not get killed for a few turns. Even on turn 2 i usually have better things to do with the mana.
Price of Progress. Even though I can play it and get value out of it as early as turn 2, i always want to get at least 4 damage out of it, and hopefully more. Part of that is up to my opponent, sometimes on the second or third turn they just dont have that many non basics out.
the rest of my card choices seem pretty self explanatory...
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
As for running out of steam, I would recommend Sulfuric Vortex; dealing damage every turn + stopping life gain will usually help you in the grindy games
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
+4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
That card made Burn Tier 1 in Modern and Tier 2 in Legacy.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
ive considered Sulfuric Vortex, im assuming you would also recommend taking out the Browbeats to make space?
Eidolon of the Great Revel. Ive been reading about this card everywhere. Ill confess, I cant figure out how this card is good for this deck. Almost every spell in the deck would damage me as i cast it. out of all my decks, this one has the most low cost spells.....what am i missing?
thanks.
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Notably, 4 Flame Rift & only basic lands
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.