I would like to see the maindeck, yes. I assume you go down in skullcrack to find some place for the 2 extra shrines (the third takes the place of the 4th eidolon). I assume you are on 20 lands?
I don't think it's accurate to say that Eidolon "isn't as good as it used to be".
The two decks people talk about in regards to Eidolon are GDS and ETron. Eidolon is strong against GDS. If they remove it, you made them spend resources to deal with it and that disrupts the flow of their game to some degree. If they don't, it actively applies pressure to them and allows you to sandbag burn spells until you're able to finish them. I'll side out Eidolon against ETron all day, but it's not actually a new thing to have a tier 1 Tron deck that you side Eidolon out against. I sided it out against Gx Tron for the last 2 years. If Eidolon was great 2 years ago (and it was), it's still great today.
I also don't agree that if you're "looking for pro points" you cut Eidolon. Consistency is actually king for those people.
Eidolon is fantastic against GDS (I don't know what people are talking about when they say it isn't), so I have no argument there.
I also think it's still great in general - being "worse" is much different from being "bad." Maybe I'm just being overly subjective. I only started playing modern seriously about a year ago, and it feels like I want to see Eidolon less than I did back then. Like I said, though, I don't at all think we should be cutting it. I expect the hivemind to conclude that it's still one of the best things we can be doing as Burn.
I also don't understand what people are talking about when they say it's bad against GDS, but you can find Loic Le Briand's reasoning on reddit and the top reasons are claims that it's bad against Affinity, GDS, and ETron and that those are all straight up bad matchups. ETron is bad, but GDS and Affinity aren't.
To me, Eidolon is on pretty much equal footing to where it was a year or two ago. The only bad matchup I see for it is Tron, and there's always been a Tron matchup where you don't really like seeing Eidolon. Everything else is the same.
I also agree that the hivemind against it will die off and people will realize that it's still up there with Bolt and Guide as the best cards in the deck.
I do want to take the time to remind people that we need a VERY good reason not to play a full playset of any given card. This is true for most competitive Magic decks, but is especially true for Burn. Those reasons exist, I do it myself, but if you're testing a new card out you should probably play the full playset. Splits in a deck without heavy filtering are often too inconsistent, and ends up doing half of two jobs instead of one job well.
Questions for everyone the thread, about some topics that I struggle
Storm - Of course cards like eidolon of rhetoric are amazing but my SB plan feels weak. I got to cast T2 RIP and still lost to a million goblins, next game he countered my removal spell with apostle's blessing and I died to two grapeshots. My SB was
+2 searing blaze
+2 Rest in peace
-4 skullcrack
I'm currently running no path to exile, partly because I don't like SB slots that don't deal damage and partly because I'm testing for team unified GP and I won't have path available there. Still, in this matchup, the difference between path and blaze should be negligible, aside from the apostle's blessing case. I've seen some sideboards running mindbreak trap but the card is really narrow and it doesn't even win you the game. I thought about having some wraths in the sideboard, like slagstorm (if it isnt useful you can cycle it for 3 damage) but it's probably too expensive and cute.
Artifact destruction - I'm currently running straight RW (4 vantage 5 mountains 2 foundry 9 fetchlands) because I love how this version can avoid dealing damage to itself. Problem is, that without green, you need other cards to sub destructive revelry. I currently have 3 fragmentize and 2 smash to smithereens, which is decent but I don't know if I would do better with 4 revelries in the sideboard and changing the manabase. In addition to this, smash to smithereens is super awkward, does someone know when do we want them? Vs chalice I only bring fragmentize (the truly dangerous chalice is x=2), maybe smash is better vs affinity? What other artifacts does this deck want to kill?
I do want to take the time to remind people that we need a VERY good reason not to play a full playset of any given card. This is true for most competitive Magic decks, but is especially true for Burn. Those reasons exist, I do it myself, but if you're testing a new card out you should probably play the full playset. Splits in a deck without heavy filtering are often too inconsistent, and ends up doing half of two jobs instead of one job well.
For the newer players out there this is regarding the main deck not the sideboard.
Donmt dedicate extra cards to storm.
We have a lot of removal. If you're in game 2-3 and your whole hand is Boros charm/skullcrack/Lava spike, consider a mulligan.
Save your creature targeted removal for when you have to use it.
Eidolon wins the game.
SB: Gy hate and more things that kill creatures.
RiP is tricker for burn because it costs 2. I'd let one of your other teMmates have that. You need relic or grafdiggers cage.
SB options for removal
Path is huge here.
Searing blood
Grim lavamancer
If they're willing to play a guy and pass--kill it eot or on your turn--don't get cute and try to kill it on their turn. Their protection spells then add to the storm count.
Tips for the mirror? Obviosuly slamming Firewalker wins a lot of gameS.
I've always heard it's about creature damage, so kill those asap, and value your own.
In that regard, I have been siding Eidolon out play and draw for post-board matches. Do you guys typically leave them in?
Can anyone comment on how to play the dance with Lightning Helix/skullcrack/deflecting palm? I feel like there's several turns of both players holding up lands to prevent life-gain off of Helix. Do you play the game normally and send off your Boros Charms EoT? Do you refuse to tap down til you have 3-4 labds?
Any advice for the end of the game? Again, feels like andance of trying to grt the other guy to blink first.
Tips for the mirror? Obviosuly slamming Firewalker wins a lot of gameS.
I've always heard it's about creature damage, so kill those asap, and value your own.
In that regard, I have been siding Eidolon out play and draw for post-board matches. Do you guys typically leave them in?
Can anyone comment on how to play the dance with Lightning Helix/skullcrack/deflecting palm? I feel like there's several turns of both players holding up lands to prevent life-gain off of Helix. Do you play the game normally and send off your Boros Charms EoT? Do you refuse to tap down til you have 3-4 labds?
Any advice for the end of the game? Again, feels like andance of trying to grt the other guy to blink first.
I find that in general, whoever wins the die roll wins the match. Smart plays can change that, of course. I would keep Eidolon in. They make a good lightning rod, sparing you damage to the face. It's definitely all about creatures--I would even side in Paths if you run them and aren't expecting Firewalkers. Don't forget you can respond to a fetch crack to get Helix lifegain off. Board out third colors if you're playing them.
I promised that I'd post this a few days ago. This is an addendum to the September Burn hate post, with data sorted by card rather than by deck. Specifically, this is being posted because of Leyline. Leyline sees some maindeck play in Lantern and Bogles, and is in 10% of sideboards. 80%+ of Lantern, Ad Nauseam, and Bogles decks play it in the sideboard and are the primary decks you'll see it from.
Columns are average number of copies in decks that play it, fraction of decks of each type that play it, and fraction of the meta that each deck comprises.
I'm currently playing a deck that runs 4 maindeck Shard Volley and it has been pretty fantastic. Sacrificing a land is a fine drawback in exchange for additional burst damage and winning. However, the card is a little awkward against countermagic. To make room for this, I have a 2/2 Skullcrack, Lightning Helix split. Here is my list for reference
Tips for the mirror? Obviosuly slamming Firewalker wins a lot of gameS.
I've always heard it's about creature damage, so kill those asap, and value your own.
In that regard, I have been siding Eidolon out play and draw for post-board matches. Do you guys typically leave them in?
Can anyone comment on how to play the dance with Lightning Helix/skullcrack/deflecting palm? I feel like there's several turns of both players holding up lands to prevent life-gain off of Helix. Do you play the game normally and send off your Boros Charms EoT? Do you refuse to tap down til you have 3-4 labds?
Any advice for the end of the game? Again, feels like andance of trying to grt the other guy to blink first.
Siding out Eidolon is correct. It's a terrible topdeck and is worse than a land if you're behind.
Searing Blaze is almost always going to get you value at some point in the matchup, so I would keep in 2-3 post-board. My usual SB plan is -4 Eidolon, -2 Blaze, -1 Lava Spike/1 Stomping Ground (play/draw); +3 Firewalker, +2 Path, +2 Palm.
You should want to be the aggressor, so just spend your mana as efficiently as possible. Don't bother with the Helix/Skullcrack thing, they won't usually have it, and you can't afford to leverage it unless you are ahead. Do your best to avoid Boros Charm into Palm though, that is a huge beating.
I have always assumed Searing Blaze is such great value in the mirror. But since we only have 12 targets--maybe 8 if they board out their Eidolons--could totally be a card that gets stuck in your hand.
I like Searing Blaze in the mirror a lot. It might not be great in multiples, but it lets you kill a creature and not lose out on 3 damage. I'd rather kill Guide with Blaze than anything else.
I like Searing Blaze in the mirror a lot. It might not be great in multiples, but it lets you kill a creature and not lose out on 3 damage. I'd rather kill Guide with Blaze than anything else.
Well I did see something I personally find very interesting. Here's a quote from that primer's section on "Bad card" to run in burn:
Cantrips: Threat density is also important to Burn, meaning in order to run Cantrips, you will need to cut lands to maintain threat density. Since you want at least 2 lands in your starting hand, cutting land will force you to mulligan more often, giving you card disadvantage. To make matters worse, you're still running the same threat density so you'll be just as likely to top deck land off those cantrips as in a standard build. So you're still running the same amount of "effective" land, only you pay the price in more mulligans. This doesn't compensate for the added card quality when cutting your "worst" Burn spell for cantrips. Examples: Gitaxian Probe, Street Wraith, Mishra's Bauble, etc.
While I agree with this 100% in legacy burn, do you think cantrips like Street Wraith and Mishra's Bauble could work in Modern burn? Here's my jab at a monocolor list with cantrips:
A couple of small, but noteworthy benefit of cantrips is 1) it fills the grave for Grim lavamancer and 2) Mishra's bauble will trigger prowess for Monastery swiftspear. Another thing that is not mentionned in the primer is that running cantrips makes it more likely to get to our sideboard cards and that is a huge plus in certain match-ups.
Legacy burn has enough good red spell (even has a couple to spare) to never need to splash a color, but the modern builds usually go for a second or even third color to maximize its effectiveness. Now I'm not saying That we could go back at mono-red because of cantrips, and the part about having to mulligan more often is still true here, but I think in the case of modern, added card quality by focusing on our good spells could be something worth visiting in either a mono or dual color burn deck. Or at least I think?
In that build, your cantrips are equivalent to 21/59 of a Burn spell, because there's no guarantee that you draw a Burn spell off of them. If you assume that creatures aren't dead cards to draw, you're at 35/59 chance to see a live card. Let's assume that any given live card is worth exactly 3 damage, and the EV of a cantrip is about 1.5 damage. Why not play Shock instead?
Those cantrips are free, but they're worth less than Burn spells. Sure, if we got to play Ancestral Recall, we'd play it happily, but we don't have that anymore. Regular cantrips take the deck from being straight forward redundancy to high variance coin flipping. I'd prefer to just play already good Burn spells than drop some and replace them with cantrips.
To add a little more: I would happily play a cantrip-Shock, but I believe that cantrip-Shock is too powerful to be printed. Cantrip-Shock would be worth approximately 3.5 damage in a Burn list, because the drawn card is 0.5 of a Burn spell (assuming 3 damage per Burn spell, the drawn card is worth 1.5 damage). I would also happily play cantrip-Lightning Strike, but I believe that's too powerful to be printed as well. Cantrip-Magma Jet is something they might be able to print, and such a card would definitely be better than Magma Jet and would probably be playable.
Generic draw spells aren't good enough, even if they're free. There's just no reason to play a card that is functionally a fraction of a Burn spell when you could just play more Burn spells. Street Wraith in your build is 21/59 of a Burn spell, but you would already have a Burn spell in hand if you had just played another Burn spell in it's place. I don't see a reason to play a draw spell and hope to draw Burn when you can just play Burn spells. The deck-thinning argument for Street Wraith is basically the same as for fetches in mono-color decks: "thinning" isn't worth the cost and it's only worth it if you have another reason. Wraith would fuel Lavamancer faster, but I generally don't have trouble fueling Lavamancer through regular play.
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
This is my current complete list:
3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
Sorcery - 8
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
Instant - 18
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Searing Blaze
2 Skullcrack
3 Shrine of Burning Rage
Land - 20
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Inspiring Vantage
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
2 Mountain
3 Destructive Revelry
3 Path to Exile
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Searing Blood
2 Skullcrack
1 Shrine of Burning Rage
1 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Shattering Spree
I also don't understand what people are talking about when they say it's bad against GDS, but you can find Loic Le Briand's reasoning on reddit and the top reasons are claims that it's bad against Affinity, GDS, and ETron and that those are all straight up bad matchups. ETron is bad, but GDS and Affinity aren't.
To me, Eidolon is on pretty much equal footing to where it was a year or two ago. The only bad matchup I see for it is Tron, and there's always been a Tron matchup where you don't really like seeing Eidolon. Everything else is the same.
I also agree that the hivemind against it will die off and people will realize that it's still up there with Bolt and Guide as the best cards in the deck.
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens
Storm - Of course cards like eidolon of rhetoric are amazing but my SB plan feels weak. I got to cast T2 RIP and still lost to a million goblins, next game he countered my removal spell with apostle's blessing and I died to two grapeshots. My SB was
+2 searing blaze
+2 Rest in peace
-4 skullcrack
I'm currently running no path to exile, partly because I don't like SB slots that don't deal damage and partly because I'm testing for team unified GP and I won't have path available there. Still, in this matchup, the difference between path and blaze should be negligible, aside from the apostle's blessing case. I've seen some sideboards running mindbreak trap but the card is really narrow and it doesn't even win you the game. I thought about having some wraths in the sideboard, like slagstorm (if it isnt useful you can cycle it for 3 damage) but it's probably too expensive and cute.
Artifact destruction - I'm currently running straight RW (4 vantage 5 mountains 2 foundry 9 fetchlands) because I love how this version can avoid dealing damage to itself. Problem is, that without green, you need other cards to sub destructive revelry. I currently have 3 fragmentize and 2 smash to smithereens, which is decent but I don't know if I would do better with 4 revelries in the sideboard and changing the manabase. In addition to this, smash to smithereens is super awkward, does someone know when do we want them? Vs chalice I only bring fragmentize (the truly dangerous chalice is x=2), maybe smash is better vs affinity? What other artifacts does this deck want to kill?
L: Maverick
For the newer players out there this is regarding the main deck not the sideboard.
We have a lot of removal. If you're in game 2-3 and your whole hand is Boros charm/skullcrack/Lava spike, consider a mulligan.
Save your creature targeted removal for when you have to use it.
Eidolon wins the game.
SB: Gy hate and more things that kill creatures.
RiP is tricker for burn because it costs 2. I'd let one of your other teMmates have that. You need relic or grafdiggers cage.
SB options for removal
Path is huge here.
Searing blood
Grim lavamancer
If they're willing to play a guy and pass--kill it eot or on your turn--don't get cute and try to kill it on their turn. Their protection spells then add to the storm count.
I've always heard it's about creature damage, so kill those asap, and value your own.
In that regard, I have been siding Eidolon out play and draw for post-board matches. Do you guys typically leave them in?
Can anyone comment on how to play the dance with Lightning Helix/skullcrack/deflecting palm? I feel like there's several turns of both players holding up lands to prevent life-gain off of Helix. Do you play the game normally and send off your Boros Charms EoT? Do you refuse to tap down til you have 3-4 labds?
Any advice for the end of the game? Again, feels like andance of trying to grt the other guy to blink first.
I find that in general, whoever wins the die roll wins the match. Smart plays can change that, of course. I would keep Eidolon in. They make a good lightning rod, sparing you damage to the face. It's definitely all about creatures--I would even side in Paths if you run them and aren't expecting Firewalkers. Don't forget you can respond to a fetch crack to get Helix lifegain off. Board out third colors if you're playing them.
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens
Columns are average number of copies in decks that play it, fraction of decks of each type that play it, and fraction of the meta that each deck comprises.
edit: i see you are there. lol.
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
Spells (28)
4x Lava Spike
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Shard Volley
4x Searing Blaze
4x Boros Charm
2x Lightning Helix
2x Skullcrack
4x Rift Bolt
4x Inspiring Vantage
3x Mountain
2x Sacred Foundry
1x Stomping Ground
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Arid Mesa
1x Scalding Tarn
3x Path to Exile
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Searing Blood
2x Skullcrack
1x Deflecting Palm
3x Destructive Revelry
2x Ensnaring Bridge
Modern: UWR Control
EDH: Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Titania, Protector of Argoth
Phelddagrif
Glissa, the Traitor
Rosheen Meanderer
RIP Jimmy foREVer
Siding out Eidolon is correct. It's a terrible topdeck and is worse than a land if you're behind.
Searing Blaze is almost always going to get you value at some point in the matchup, so I would keep in 2-3 post-board. My usual SB plan is -4 Eidolon, -2 Blaze, -1 Lava Spike/1 Stomping Ground (play/draw); +3 Firewalker, +2 Path, +2 Palm.
You should want to be the aggressor, so just spend your mana as efficiently as possible. Don't bother with the Helix/Skullcrack thing, they won't usually have it, and you can't afford to leverage it unless you are ahead. Do your best to avoid Boros Charm into Palm though, that is a huge beating.
Thoughts?
Legacy Burn: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/aggro-tempo/488613-burn
4x Goblin guide
4x Monastery swiftspear
4x Eidolon of great revels
2x Grim lavamancer
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Searing Blaze
4x Skullcrack
1x Shard volley
4x Mishra's bauble
4x Street wraith
Lands (17)
12x Fetches
5x mountains
Legacy burn has enough good red spell (even has a couple to spare) to never need to splash a color, but the modern builds usually go for a second or even third color to maximize its effectiveness. Now I'm not saying That we could go back at mono-red because of cantrips, and the part about having to mulligan more often is still true here, but I think in the case of modern, added card quality by focusing on our good spells could be something worth visiting in either a mono or dual color burn deck. Or at least I think?
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Those cantrips are free, but they're worth less than Burn spells. Sure, if we got to play Ancestral Recall, we'd play it happily, but we don't have that anymore. Regular cantrips take the deck from being straight forward redundancy to high variance coin flipping. I'd prefer to just play already good Burn spells than drop some and replace them with cantrips.
Generic draw spells aren't good enough, even if they're free. There's just no reason to play a card that is functionally a fraction of a Burn spell when you could just play more Burn spells. Street Wraith in your build is 21/59 of a Burn spell, but you would already have a Burn spell in hand if you had just played another Burn spell in it's place. I don't see a reason to play a draw spell and hope to draw Burn when you can just play Burn spells. The deck-thinning argument for Street Wraith is basically the same as for fetches in mono-color decks: "thinning" isn't worth the cost and it's only worth it if you have another reason. Wraith would fuel Lavamancer faster, but I generally don't have trouble fueling Lavamancer through regular play.