Hi guys it’s been a while. Two questions. I’m usually the only burn player out of all the regulars at my LGS. Sometimes a random burn player will show up but it’s usually just me. My meta is mostly control, humans and token decks(bw tokens, pyromancer). I stopped running Atarkas command for lightning helix RW with a splash for green revelry in the side. For my meta would it be ok to play atarkas command and back to three colors. I’m not worried about other burn players. Also what would goblin chainwhirler look like in the side as a two of. I play 1-2 humans and 1-2 tokens deck every week. All the tokens have 1 toughness and humans have about 90 percent creatures with 1 toughness. Is it worth it? Thank you
On a side note I played 1 hazoret mainboard for about a month back in December. Any game he entered the battlefield I never lost. It was the hands with not enough lands that sucked
I think you could play AC in that meta. I think Tokens and Pyro are both cases where you just want to be fast. Humans gums up the board and makes it hard to get extra damage from AC, though. I'm a little surprised that you would swap Helix for it, though, since the straight forward replacement is to cut Skullcrack for AC.
Burn just led me to my first ever 4-0 at a weekly modern event. It does help when I play against two lantern control decks back to back, but yeah I am feeling really good right now. $45 store credit let me pick up a couple of bloodstained mire, so now I have seven fetchlands to work with.
Congrats! That's precisely how I went from 4 Mire, 4 Foothills, 3 Heath to getting Mesas... and then I went down the rabbit hole of foiling everything.
I come back to modern after a year and a half being off-magic. I play a fairly stock list of boros burn with green splash for destructive revelry in the sideboard :
I can't help playing thunderous wrath even if I know it's not good. The card is way too fun.
I went to a small modern tournament at my LGS thiw week end and found myself quite lost in the metagame. I ended with a 3W-1L so I guess it's not that bad, but I had this annoying feeling that I was totally messing up with my sideboarding strategy.
Against new decks like Humans or Holow one, are we still the aggro deck ? How to sideboard against those decks ? Humans plays vial, so I put revelry in, eidolon out. +2 deflecting palm -2 skullcrack. My opponent told me it was a mistake to take out eidolon, what do you think ? I feel they are more aggro than us.
Same thing about holow one, I think I would take out the eidolon, even if they play a lot of cheap spells.
Does anyone have tips for good sideboard strategy with this deck ?
Is there a sideboarding guide for burn players somewhere on the internet ?
Thanks.
I put some suggested sideboard cards in the first post and made it so you can use links to navigate it a bit more easily than "Ctrl+F". Think of it as a list of things you might choose to put into your sideboard and things you might opt to remove from the maindeck rather than a dedicated sideboard guide (since such a thing for a primer wouldn't actually be useful because no one is sitting on the same 15 sideboard cards every tournament). Here are Hollow One and Humans. There are some google docs that people have shared with their own personal sideboards, but I don't have those readily available.
I would not recommend artifact removal against Humans. I would rather load up on targeted removal for the rest of their board, and play Searing effects and Path to Exile. Playing another Lavamancer in the maindeck can help (in place of your Thunderous Wrath). I think that cutting Eidolon is definitely correct there, especially if your strategy is to let them have their Vial and then control what they play afterwards.
I'd also take out Eidolon against Hollow One. They play cheap stuff, but I think you're better off attacking their strategy with graveyard hate, Path, and shutting them down with Bridge.
I don’t know if this had been posted to the group yet but has anyone seen the newer RB list running Death’s Shadow, and 4 bolts/4 spikes? Is that considered a pseudo burn list?
I have not seen that. Do you have a link to a list somewhere? I'm skeptical that a 2 color burn list would do enough self damage to turn on Death's Shadow efficiently, and I don't view DS as a Burn creature.
And tbh I don't view DS as one either, but it seems to be at least within or skating around the RB boundaries (4 Buides, 4 Swiftspear, 8 burn spells) The biggest differences are the addition of Bobs, Abbots, DS, and Mutagenic Growth.
Gerry Thompson highlighted this in an article of SCG recently. This is what he said about it:
“I'm a big fan of decks like these, and it wouldn't shock me if they become the future to some degree. Burn is easily defeated by hate cards, and Death's Shadow suffers to some degree by not being as proactive as it should be. A mashup featuring Abbot of Keral Keep could be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Dark Confidant in a Burn shell is excellent because you're already drawing fire with your Goblin Guides, so it's more likely to stick around. The Death's Shadows aren't quite as explosive in this deck, especially considering the Blackcleave Cliffs, but as a Turn 3 play, it seems just fine. Having some additional heavy hitters for Claim is necessary anyway. I've been waiting for Claim to break out, and it's a perfect fit here. Previous versions have rocked Vexing Devils alongside it, which is a fine route to take, but maybe not a perfect one.
As lifegain and cheap removal hold Burn down, a different approach is necessary, and so far, I really like this one. Given the overall strategy has deviated somewhat, playing Lava Spike doesn't excite me, and I'd also like to try Bomat Couriers, but this deck has promise.”
I run a pretty stock burn list(link in below). Should I swap 2 palm for ensnaring bridge and 1 path for 1 more searing blood for the human/aggro heavy meta? https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1118950#paper
And tbh I don't view DS as one either, but it seems to be at least within or skating around the RB boundaries (4 Buides, 4 Swiftspear, 8 burn spells) The biggest differences are the addition of Bobs, Abbots, DS, and Mutagenic Growth.
Oh my god I want to add 4x Bump in the Night and 4x Gonti's Machinations to this and go to town.
I think Skullcrack is then the best card to remove - with 8 lifegain cards it becomes a bit of a non-bo...
Its nowhere near as versatile as Lightning Helix in straight Boros or RWg, but the payoff is having additional lifegain-swing and the lower curve from Black using Bump and Gonti's. The downside is Sorcery speed, not being able to target creatures (Skullcrack couldn't do that though) and maybe not running SB Rain of Gore anymore.
That's an interesting spell for black, though I'm not sure the life gain is that big of a deal that it's significantly better than lightning strike. The thing I still don't like about black is that the sideboard options have holes (namely Path).
That's an interesting spell for black, though I'm not sure the life gain is that big of a deal that it's significantly better than lightning strike. The thing I still don't like about black is that the sideboard options have holes (namely Path).
I can only think of a few cards I would be worried about that Path can deal with that Push can’t. Things that come to mind that are played a decent amount are: the Titans, Angler, and Tasigur. Am I missing something? I left out Wurmcoil as you can play Rain of Gore to mimic Deflecting Palm so you don’t need to worry there either.
Bedlam Reveler, Hollow One (artifact destruction covers it, too), Reality Smasher and other big Eldrazi, Griselbrand (though it's not common these days). I don't like how you'd have to keep a fetch up or find a way to lose a creature in order to use Fatal Push on something at CMC3 or 4. Push also doesn't answer Kitchen Finks.
Rain of Gore does nothing against Wurmcoil. Lifelink is an ability, but it's damage that causes you to gain life with a Lifelink creature, and damage is not a spell or ability so Rain of Gore doesn't touch it. Gatherer rulings on Rain of Gore say this:
4/15/2013: This does not apply to life gain caused by combat damage from a creature with lifelink.
I haven't played either of them, but I don't think I'd play either of them.
I can understand Bedlam Reveler against decks that go very long, since it has a high probability to be "RR: draw 3, get a 3/4 body". However, I'm not sure it's really worth it. Control matchups go long, but they can just counter if and it's no different from playing any other spell that would get countered. You can beat most decks that attack your hand without drawing cards. Tarmogoyf decks are generally even to favorable matchups. 8-rack is easy unless they have a really good draw.
I don't like Hazoret at all. I don't want to pay 4 mana for anything in this deck. I think Grim Lavamancer is a better recurrent Shock anyway.
That's an interesting spell for black, though I'm not sure the life gain is that big of a deal that it's significantly better than lightning strike. The thing I still don't like about black is that the sideboard options have holes (namely Path).
I just want to comment on this and I know I don't comment here often. I don't think your reasoning is bad and on paper I agree that Sovereign's Bite isn't that good but in the entire package I do believe it makes RB Burn significantly better. The only difference is I would run my list with a single stomping ground to get access to destructive revelry. I know you and many others have posted before stating that when splashing you need to look at what you gain as well as what you lose. So what does this card give RB Burn?
You gain 8 spells that have "Opponent loses 3 life and you gain 3 life." this gives us significantly more lifegain than the other variants. Not to mention we have 12 black spells with this setup which makes anti-burn cards like korr firewalker significantly less threatening. We also have 12 sources that deflecting palm doesn't do anything against and 4 spells that ignore leyline of sanctity. Giving us more time to draw our Destructive Revelry. The life gain is significant because it means we have a lot more staying power on top of the deck being much faster (more one drops in bump in the night and gonti's machination.) which is an interesting combo. Now I do think the loss of path is significant but not terribly so. With more life gain main board we probably don't need korr firewalker or dragon's claw in board. With 12 black sources playing around Korr becomes significantly easier as well. This makes cards like Terminate a lot more appealing as one of the big draw backs is that it can't kill cards like korr. Yet I'm still running self inflicted wound so if I feel so inclined on removing him in the mirror I can do so.
Personally for sideboard I'd run something like this:
This gives us anti-life gain hate for the decks we need it, anti artifact as well as anti enchantment, searing blood like effects in self inflicted wound as well as being an excellent hate card against boggles. Removal that hits most creatures in the meta (albeit Kitchen Finks is still a pain to deal with admittedly), anti graveyard hate, and go wide strategy hate.
Let's not forget that RB has less reason to splash in other colors. We don't need deflecting palm quite as much and with 8 cards that grant life we can follow boros approach in a far less painful mana base.
Do I think RB is as strong as Boros? Probably not but I think it's closer than it's ever been and we'll probably see more RB variant lists. My dream card is a black version of path to exile. "Exile target creature and lose 3 life." I would play that even with the life loss. Even now going back to RB is feeling really tempting.
Thought I'd pop in to give my thoughts on black. I was running r/b and r/b/g burn for a while when i didn't have the white cards yet.
There are some decent benefits to running a straight R/B or R/B/g list. The addition of Bump in the Night just makes the deck faster. Having another 3 damage for 1 spell can lead to crazy fast wins. It also means we can keep more 1 land hands.
Also consider the added benefit Monastery swiftspear receives from having more 1 cost spells. Turn 1 spear gets in for 1. Turn 2 cast bump and lava spike, spear gets in for 3. 10 damage through on turn 2.
I suppose the real benefit of adding black is that it takes your curve down quite a bit. I liked Gonti's Machinations, but I'm not sure 4 is the best idea. 3 seems good however. The card is too conditional to put 4 in. By lowering the curve, we also make Grim Lavamancer better. The faster we can get cards into the yard, the more we can use his ability. You can also play only 19 (18?) lands when you have so many 1 cost spells, thus fitting in an extra burn spell.
Another benefit of the low curve is that we can take less damage from Eidolon of the great revel compared to a higher mana curve deck. It's just easier to play out your hand before playing eidolon, or play a spell then eidolon. In addition, I was playing around with 2-3 Shard volleys in my r/b list. Since we play our hand out faster than any burn deck, we can close out the game faster. Given that, we can afford so sac. a land to kill an opponent a turn early. Adding Shard volley makes the mana curve even lower, thus making all the cards mentioned before better. This card is also nice with swiftspear as we can get those extra prowess triggers more often. In my very limited testing, a lower curve makes playing control easier. WE just have more chances to play and extra spell once they are tapped out, after they countered our first burn spell for the turn. You can just save up 1 cost spells, keep playing land, and force them to keep mana up until you can just flood them with burn.
Finally, having bump in the night and gonti's machinations means we don't have to worry about playing our lightning bolt too early. There are those situations where you're wondering if it's worth it to play bolt early in the game to get an extra prowess trigger or two. Or trying to decide if playing that bolt earlier so you have enough cards to activate lavamancer is worth it. These extra 1 cost spells means we are much more likely to have a card in hand that will do effectively the same thing as bolt in those situations. Thus we save bolt until late game, just in case we happen to need it for a creature.
All of these 1 cost spells can also lead to crazy plays that allow you to deal 18 direct damage by turn 3. When you are on the play, if you have 3 lands in time, plus every card is a 1 cost 3 damage spell. Basically, if our opponent uses fetchlands or shocklands in turns 1/2, they are dead on our turn 3. Is this magical christmas land? Yes. However, you do get to visit there more often by playing these cheaper black burn spells.
To sum up: Black allows you to lower your curve.
A lower curve makes a few of the cards in our deck better.
A lower curve means you can add in another 1 cost 3 damage burn spell or 2.
The deck is faster with a lower curve.
I will say, the drawback of gonti's inconsistency can be real, sometimes. It's a bad top deck late game, sure. Most of the time, it's really not that hard to pop off though. What is your opponent going to do to get around it, not make you lose any life? Remember, you just leave gonti's on the field the entire game, continuously accruing energy. That way, if you happen to draw 2 or 3, you can immediately use both of them to close out the game. This card on turn 1 is incredible!
Also, fatal push, terminate and rain of gore are not bad cards to have access to. You might miss path to exile less than you think. It's easy to go under tron decks with this build, so you wouldn't miss path so much against them.
I am curious about adding Dark Confidant and/or Sign in blood to black. Confidant could allow us to run 4 gonti's without much drawback. Sign in blood is flexible as a burn spell or card advantage. Remember, with mostly 1 cost spells sign in blood becomes better. You stand a better chance of playing a card you draw with sign in blood when most everything costs 1.
Go to the first post in this topic and you will see a sideboard guide. Taking out the Eidolon against Humans and Hollow One is perfectly fine.
I think you could play AC in that meta. I think Tokens and Pyro are both cases where you just want to be fast. Humans gums up the board and makes it hard to get extra damage from AC, though. I'm a little surprised that you would swap Helix for it, though, since the straight forward replacement is to cut Skullcrack for AC.
Congrats! That's precisely how I went from 4 Mire, 4 Foothills, 3 Heath to getting Mesas... and then I went down the rabbit hole of foiling everything.
I put some suggested sideboard cards in the first post and made it so you can use links to navigate it a bit more easily than "Ctrl+F". Think of it as a list of things you might choose to put into your sideboard and things you might opt to remove from the maindeck rather than a dedicated sideboard guide (since such a thing for a primer wouldn't actually be useful because no one is sitting on the same 15 sideboard cards every tournament). Here are Hollow One and Humans. There are some google docs that people have shared with their own personal sideboards, but I don't have those readily available.
I would not recommend artifact removal against Humans. I would rather load up on targeted removal for the rest of their board, and play Searing effects and Path to Exile. Playing another Lavamancer in the maindeck can help (in place of your Thunderous Wrath). I think that cutting Eidolon is definitely correct there, especially if your strategy is to let them have their Vial and then control what they play afterwards.
I'd also take out Eidolon against Hollow One. They play cheap stuff, but I think you're better off attacking their strategy with graveyard hate, Path, and shutting them down with Bridge.
And tbh I don't view DS as one either, but it seems to be at least within or skating around the RB boundaries (4 Buides, 4 Swiftspear, 8 burn spells) The biggest differences are the addition of Bobs, Abbots, DS, and Mutagenic Growth.
“I'm a big fan of decks like these, and it wouldn't shock me if they become the future to some degree. Burn is easily defeated by hate cards, and Death's Shadow suffers to some degree by not being as proactive as it should be. A mashup featuring Abbot of Keral Keep could be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Dark Confidant in a Burn shell is excellent because you're already drawing fire with your Goblin Guides, so it's more likely to stick around. The Death's Shadows aren't quite as explosive in this deck, especially considering the Blackcleave Cliffs, but as a Turn 3 play, it seems just fine. Having some additional heavy hitters for Claim is necessary anyway. I've been waiting for Claim to break out, and it's a perfect fit here. Previous versions have rocked Vexing Devils alongside it, which is a fine route to take, but maybe not a perfect one.
As lifegain and cheap removal hold Burn down, a different approach is necessary, and so far, I really like this one. Given the overall strategy has deviated somewhat, playing Lava Spike doesn't excite me, and I'd also like to try Bomat Couriers, but this deck has promise.”
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1118950#paper
Oh my god I want to add 4x Bump in the Night and 4x Gonti's Machinations to this and go to town.
19 land including 3 or 4xBlackcleave Cliffs and 3 or 4xBlood Crypt.
4x Bump in the night, Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike, Gonti's Machinations, Rift Bolt, Searing Blaze, Goblin Guide, Monastery Swiftspear, Eidolon of the Great Revel and 4x Sovereign's Bite
1x Grim Lavamancer
I think Skullcrack is then the best card to remove - with 8 lifegain cards it becomes a bit of a non-bo...
Its nowhere near as versatile as Lightning Helix in straight Boros or RWg, but the payoff is having additional lifegain-swing and the lower curve from Black using Bump and Gonti's. The downside is Sorcery speed, not being able to target creatures (Skullcrack couldn't do that though) and maybe not running SB Rain of Gore anymore.
I can only think of a few cards I would be worried about that Path can deal with that Push can’t. Things that come to mind that are played a decent amount are: the Titans, Angler, and Tasigur. Am I missing something? I left out Wurmcoil as you can play Rain of Gore to mimic Deflecting Palm so you don’t need to worry there either.
Rain of Gore does nothing against Wurmcoil. Lifelink is an ability, but it's damage that causes you to gain life with a Lifelink creature, and damage is not a spell or ability so Rain of Gore doesn't touch it. Gatherer rulings on Rain of Gore say this:
I can understand Bedlam Reveler against decks that go very long, since it has a high probability to be "RR: draw 3, get a 3/4 body". However, I'm not sure it's really worth it. Control matchups go long, but they can just counter if and it's no different from playing any other spell that would get countered. You can beat most decks that attack your hand without drawing cards. Tarmogoyf decks are generally even to favorable matchups. 8-rack is easy unless they have a really good draw.
I don't like Hazoret at all. I don't want to pay 4 mana for anything in this deck. I think Grim Lavamancer is a better recurrent Shock anyway.
Collective Brutality, Kambal, Consul of Allocation & Blood Moon combine with the typical discard package and multiple draw options is the beats :frown:.
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I just want to comment on this and I know I don't comment here often. I don't think your reasoning is bad and on paper I agree that Sovereign's Bite isn't that good but in the entire package I do believe it makes RB Burn significantly better. The only difference is I would run my list with a single stomping ground to get access to destructive revelry. I know you and many others have posted before stating that when splashing you need to look at what you gain as well as what you lose. So what does this card give RB Burn?
You gain 8 spells that have "Opponent loses 3 life and you gain 3 life." this gives us significantly more lifegain than the other variants. Not to mention we have 12 black spells with this setup which makes anti-burn cards like korr firewalker significantly less threatening. We also have 12 sources that deflecting palm doesn't do anything against and 4 spells that ignore leyline of sanctity. Giving us more time to draw our Destructive Revelry. The life gain is significant because it means we have a lot more staying power on top of the deck being much faster (more one drops in bump in the night and gonti's machination.) which is an interesting combo. Now I do think the loss of path is significant but not terribly so. With more life gain main board we probably don't need korr firewalker or dragon's claw in board. With 12 black sources playing around Korr becomes significantly easier as well. This makes cards like Terminate a lot more appealing as one of the big draw backs is that it can't kill cards like korr. Yet I'm still running self inflicted wound so if I feel so inclined on removing him in the mirror I can do so.
Personally for sideboard I'd run something like this:
4 Destructive Revelry
3 Skullcrack
2-3 Terminate
2-3 Self Inflicted Wound
3 Rakdos Charm
This gives us anti-life gain hate for the decks we need it, anti artifact as well as anti enchantment, searing blood like effects in self inflicted wound as well as being an excellent hate card against boggles. Removal that hits most creatures in the meta (albeit Kitchen Finks is still a pain to deal with admittedly), anti graveyard hate, and go wide strategy hate.
Let's not forget that RB has less reason to splash in other colors. We don't need deflecting palm quite as much and with 8 cards that grant life we can follow boros approach in a far less painful mana base.
Do I think RB is as strong as Boros? Probably not but I think it's closer than it's ever been and we'll probably see more RB variant lists. My dream card is a black version of path to exile. "Exile target creature and lose 3 life." I would play that even with the life loss. Even now going back to RB is feeling really tempting.
There are some decent benefits to running a straight R/B or R/B/g list. The addition of Bump in the Night just makes the deck faster. Having another 3 damage for 1 spell can lead to crazy fast wins. It also means we can keep more 1 land hands.
Also consider the added benefit Monastery swiftspear receives from having more 1 cost spells. Turn 1 spear gets in for 1. Turn 2 cast bump and lava spike, spear gets in for 3. 10 damage through on turn 2.
I suppose the real benefit of adding black is that it takes your curve down quite a bit. I liked Gonti's Machinations, but I'm not sure 4 is the best idea. 3 seems good however. The card is too conditional to put 4 in. By lowering the curve, we also make Grim Lavamancer better. The faster we can get cards into the yard, the more we can use his ability. You can also play only 19 (18?) lands when you have so many 1 cost spells, thus fitting in an extra burn spell.
Another benefit of the low curve is that we can take less damage from Eidolon of the great revel compared to a higher mana curve deck. It's just easier to play out your hand before playing eidolon, or play a spell then eidolon. In addition, I was playing around with 2-3 Shard volleys in my r/b list. Since we play our hand out faster than any burn deck, we can close out the game faster. Given that, we can afford so sac. a land to kill an opponent a turn early. Adding Shard volley makes the mana curve even lower, thus making all the cards mentioned before better. This card is also nice with swiftspear as we can get those extra prowess triggers more often. In my very limited testing, a lower curve makes playing control easier. WE just have more chances to play and extra spell once they are tapped out, after they countered our first burn spell for the turn. You can just save up 1 cost spells, keep playing land, and force them to keep mana up until you can just flood them with burn.
Finally, having bump in the night and gonti's machinations means we don't have to worry about playing our lightning bolt too early. There are those situations where you're wondering if it's worth it to play bolt early in the game to get an extra prowess trigger or two. Or trying to decide if playing that bolt earlier so you have enough cards to activate lavamancer is worth it. These extra 1 cost spells means we are much more likely to have a card in hand that will do effectively the same thing as bolt in those situations. Thus we save bolt until late game, just in case we happen to need it for a creature.
All of these 1 cost spells can also lead to crazy plays that allow you to deal 18 direct damage by turn 3. When you are on the play, if you have 3 lands in time, plus every card is a 1 cost 3 damage spell. Basically, if our opponent uses fetchlands or shocklands in turns 1/2, they are dead on our turn 3. Is this magical christmas land? Yes. However, you do get to visit there more often by playing these cheaper black burn spells.
To sum up: Black allows you to lower your curve.
A lower curve makes a few of the cards in our deck better.
A lower curve means you can add in another 1 cost 3 damage burn spell or 2.
The deck is faster with a lower curve.
I will say, the drawback of gonti's inconsistency can be real, sometimes. It's a bad top deck late game, sure. Most of the time, it's really not that hard to pop off though. What is your opponent going to do to get around it, not make you lose any life? Remember, you just leave gonti's on the field the entire game, continuously accruing energy. That way, if you happen to draw 2 or 3, you can immediately use both of them to close out the game. This card on turn 1 is incredible!
Also, fatal push, terminate and rain of gore are not bad cards to have access to. You might miss path to exile less than you think. It's easy to go under tron decks with this build, so you wouldn't miss path so much against them.
I am curious about adding Dark Confidant and/or Sign in blood to black. Confidant could allow us to run 4 gonti's without much drawback. Sign in blood is flexible as a burn spell or card advantage. Remember, with mostly 1 cost spells sign in blood becomes better. You stand a better chance of playing a card you draw with sign in blood when most everything costs 1.
You need it out early and gathering energy.
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