MTG Salvation

Not to discredit your results, but the guy that finished top 16 did everything you disagree with and placed higher. (All vexing devil, marauders, and hellspark + Blaze on the Sb). I'm not saying that what you are doing is wrong, but for someone to go all the other way and still top16 means that most likely what he was doing wasn't incorrect either, as if you are getting up there with your build it cant just be luck anymore.

Quote from Jorke

Not to discredit your results, but the guy that finished top 16 did everything you disagree with and placed higher. (All vexing devil, marauders, and hellspark + Blaze on the Sb). I'm not saying that what you are doing is wrong, but for someone to go all the other way and still top16 means that most likely what he was doing wasn't incorrect either, as if you are getting up there with your build it cant just be luck anymore.

Funnily enough, I played him last round. Had I won, I would have been in 14th His list was much better in the mirror, obviously. That said, I don't want to discredit him either, but I think he just had much better matchups, he mentioned when we we're talking. I also don't believe he had to play 3 of the people who ended up top 8ing (and winning), but hey it worked for him. That said, I still think my list is the right choice.

Yeah, have to go with bigwithdraw ~ his deck is clearly more anti-jund and the other deck is going to have a better mirror match, just because of the creatures it is running. It is a meta-call; if bigwithdraw had faced even more Jund than he did, he would have done even better. The other burn player may have been fortunate enough to avoid a lot of Jund, where the extra creatures would have been more of a liability.

Thought you only lost to jund. Well I don't think there is a "Right List"(although I do think your list was well equiped to play against the metagame), at least not yet, as every time burn places there's several cards that are distinct from decklist to decklist. There is too much variance in the format atm, and the deck has multiple outs depending on how the meta turns out. Your list seemed particularly strong vs creature decks, but weak vs combo and the like which didn't appear too much, eggs and storm decks can be a nightmare for the deck + Leyline of sanctity is pretty much game if you don't have any creatures. It is also is sb for decks you didn't encounter(that I know of). your deck was prepared for the matches. I think that a better statement would be that your list was better for how the metagame was at the moment. I can accept that vexing devil can be mediocre vs jund, but that does not discredit his power vs combo/control matches in which he is pretty good. Hellspark is one of the greatest cards vs.control(that's why its a 4 of in legacy). And marauders performs greatly vs small creature decks.
Again I don't think that what you did was wrong, but I believe that what made some of your choices good(Flames, Magma jet) was the metagame and not that they are strictly "better" than other cards.

Unless of course you meant they were bad for the meta you were expecting in which case I agree with you.

Quote from Jorke

Thought you only lost to jund. Well I don't think there is a "Right List"(although I do think your list was well equiped to play against the metagame), at least not yet, as every time burn places there's several cards that are distinct from decklist to decklist. There is too much variance in the format atm, and the deck has multiple outs depending on how the meta turns out. Your list seemed particularly strong vs creature decks, but weak vs combo and the like which didn't appear too much, eggs and storm decks can be a nightmare for the deck + Leyline of sanctity is pretty much game if you don't have any creatures. It is also is sb for decks you didn't encounter(that I know of). your deck was prepared for the matches. I think that a better statement would be that your list was better for how the metagame was at the moment. I can accept that vexing devil can be mediocre vs jund, but that does not discredit his power vs combo/control matches in which he is pretty good. Hellspark is one of the greatest cards vs.control(that's why its a 4 of in legacy). And marauders performs greatly vs small creature decks.
Again I don't think that what you did was wrong, but I believe that what made some of your choices good(Flames, Magma jet) was the metagame and not that they are strictly "better" than other cards.

Unless of course you meant they were bad for the meta you were expecting in which case I agree with you.

I played jund 6 times. I won 3, and lost 3 against all of the top 8 jund decks. Sometimes they just nut draw and cascade crazy well and you can't do anything. I guess it is closer to 50/50, but all of my losses had me land flooding in the deciding games, so take what you will from that. I do believe it is very strong vs jund, and as I said I just didn't draw well enough to beat them 3 times. While I agree this version seems weaker against the combo decks, I tried to rectify that by playing the 4 torpor orbs and 3 grafdiggers, paired with 4 rakdos charms in the board. If I ran into pod/twin/storm I was confidant if I saw any of those I would be able to stall out until I drew enough burn. Unfortunately (or fortunately maybe) I played against zero combo decks. Unless the meta-game changes a ton, yeah I think these are the right choices. But it would take a lot to shake up the modern meta-game at the moment. Jund is everywhere. I played jund 4 times on day 2 alone! If you are making a deck for a meta that is a larger tournament, build it to beat jund or expect to lose. That's why I didn't include Vexing Devils or Hellsparks. If you could have guaranteed my pairings would have been against control and combo all day, sure I may have changed my tune

Let's just use a perfect example of why Hellspark is really bad in the Jund matchup. This was actually the prime reason I dropped it after testing against my friends jund prior to the GP.

On the play, lets say you go Goblin Guide - attack - pass. They go land, deathrite. What do you do now? You can either run out the hellspark, have them take 5, and next turn they remove it with deathrite, they gain 2 and you just spent 1 card to do 1 damage. Pretty terrible. Now let's say you don't run it out - you searing blaze the deathrite, attack with the goblin guide and pass the turn. They drop a tarmogoyf who is at least a 3/4. Now you have another problem. You can run out the hellspark now but he's just gonna get blocked. And what happens when you they block it? You start to consider "hm, I should bolt the goyf and get rid of it!" so now you are starting to waste burn on creatures. Which is pointless. We have a faster clock. We can throw our now useless creatures in front of them to buy more draw steps. Also, Hellspark is terrible against lingering souls. When I played against jund, lingering souls was useless. By the time they get it online and flashback, goblin guide, if I even had him, had already done his job. What happens when you run hellsparks? 2 of those spirits jump in front, and you've just spent 1 card to do 1 damage - again, terrible when jund has such ridiculous card advantage with cascade. I understand and agree that outside of the jund and a few other creature based matchups, Hellspark is actually worth including. But if you are planning on playing in any serious meta, you can expect to see a ton of jund. 15 rounds I played it 6 times!

On the thundermaw - jund list, I actually played the eventual winner (he was my last jund loss). Against burn, I think it's much worse. I just drew like crap the entire deciding game (not that he isnt a good player or anything, but I got screwed for land quite terribly). Main deck dismember is near useless against the 8 creature version and lotus cobra eats a searing blaze or magma jet before it can really accelerate him into much.

I also played scapeshift once and ran it over. Theyre combo seems like it's a turn slower then other combo, and they tap out a lot to accelerate, leaving you open to burn on your turn without fear of a counterspell.

The only game's I lost were to getting super flooded. It had to happen at the times I needed to rip hard.

I agree. it really is a waste of time and end sup paining you more, aka at the cost of other burn/aggro games

You are still playing burn, you need them untapped. Also getting fountain and stomping ground is useless for the gameplan, they are dead colors, playa domain If you want to, but not in burn.

This seems like a lot of work for no benefit. You are going to slow roll the first few turns, generally the most important to a deck like this, and deploy a wacky manabase just to get max value out of one card? It works in Zoo because Zoo is stretching for colors anyway. It doesn't work here. Seems like a waste of time.

I think you would have to build around Hidetsugu to make that happen... and even then, an opponent would only have to pop a fetch, activate deathrite, etc... to counter the effect.

I agree, the deck has started to wrap the format around it. Even though other decks have an even level at tier 1, the deck has soooo many players piloting it everywhere. GP toronto had about 200 players running it. I don't have a lot of experience vs the newer versions(Spirit Jund), but the older version was about 55-45 in our favor because of how aggressive the deck was, specially when they started to run messenger over K-Finks. Right now it seems like more spells over creatures is the best way to go, as most of your creatures will just be chumped by spirit tokens. Thoughtseize is something I love to see them use, and game one their confidants are dead cards in their hand, unless they want to take that high risk of playing him.
As for the Sb, if your are not maining them 4 searing blazes is what I would bring in. Besides that there's not a lot, I actually wanted to see what you guys think about either pyroclasm or volcanic fallout for the matchup as they kill deathrite shaman, confidant, the spirit tokens and maybe now lotus cobras.(Tron, affinity(whipflare) and scapeshift have been doing it so it might be worth it).
I think bringing in the charm might also be correct although it seems a little too situational, I think bigwithdraw was doing it at the GP, so he might know better about whether or not it is worth it to side it in or not.
Also I don't know if you guys have been checking the daily events lately but burn has top'ed almost every day for a while now. there's several 4-0's and 3-1's there. It is dominating as much as tron, pod, and jund in the format there. I think people need to realize that burn has a little bit more of a presence in the format right now.

It's probably too slow to make an impact in the match up, not to mention it slows our gameplan of killing turn 4 too. besides they can still just search for their basics and use those, although this is too hard to accomplish when you time right your Blood Moon

Incinerate should miss the cut. If you're paying more than 1 mana for your burn spell, it needs to do more than just have a no regenerate clause. The only burn that's 2cc or higher that should be considered is Searing Blaze, Magma Jet (keeping yourself off of flood is incredibly powerful and worth the lower damage), Rift Bolt (which we almost always suspend), and Flames of the Blood Hand (powerful on its own and does wonders against Tron).

Flames is terrible against the life gain decks, but that matchup is basically unwinnable anyway. In an unknown meta, I would just give up on the matchup and shore up the board for other match ups and hope to dodge. If you know you're facing it every Friday, may God have mercy on you.

In my opinion, the best card in the 75 is Rakdos Charm. I say this because it's two sideboard plans in one while still managing to be a burn spell; in other words, you don't dilute your gameplan when boarding. It's an auto 4-of in my opinion for the board.

I had been testing Cage in the board, but had been unimpressed. I'll give the Rest in Peace plan a shot, although it does turn off Grim Lavamancer. I guess the idea would be that it slows them down more than it slows me down.

Try Torpor Orb in the sideboard. Does doubly duty against pod and twin decks.

Quote from Texeven

After that game I really think the soul sisters matchup IS winnable.

You just have to do nothing the whole time and shoot their creatures away, waiting for one of the two Rain of Gore which you hopefully boarded in. After that feel free to burn them away... I will try this next time

That may win you the games where they open with Sisters, but not even Rain of Gore can save you from the games where they open with Martyr on the play. With Spectral Procession, Squadron Hawk, Ranger of Eos, and Honor of the Pure, burning their creatures is futile. Even if Serra Ascendant and Ajani's Pridemate are gone, they'll kill you with multiple 2/2's.

I found the Zoo-like UWR Delver match-up was ugly (and totally in favour of Soul Sisters) for that reason. It's no use targeting Sisters and fatties when Martyr is the real bomb.

I always give the Martyr/Proc Match about a 20% chance of win, if that. If you have a really good hand and they don't have a Martyr you can kill them around turn 5 before their army gets too crazy. Besides that there's just not a lot of options for us. We could fill the SB with a bunch of hate cards, but you definitely don't want to be doing that. Flames of the blood hand is not exactly mained for that match, but for stuff like random lifegain in other archtypes like Kitchen Finks, Lightning Helix, Wurmcoil, Baneslayer and stuff that your opponent will try to use to stabilize. Do not play incinerate. Fill that slot with magma jet if you despise the creatures so much(Get it? Despise, Creatures? alright I'll shut up), but try not to play mediocre spells in there. Sure it's whatever lategame, but early game which is when you want to be playing spells it slows you down too much by making you spend your mana on it instead of other burn spells without giving you any other stuff other than the 3 damage.

On another note, does anybody knows what to do against Melira Pod?, the matchup is kinda rough as of lately. the 4 kitchen finks in the main are too annoying, and give them enough turns to stabilize. Artifact hate is alright, but it just doesn't do enough. Specially since they can just Chord of calling into whatever they need. Rakdos charm is usually great because the deal 1 damage ability is pretty awesome vs them if they don't have a pod in play. Also GY hate is almost useless vs them. It is even worse than the artifact hate because they can either just assamble the combo again or just beat you on board with their stuff. I haven't added in flames, but i hope that they make the match better. Maybe another lavamancer in the Sb too. Pyroclasm is usually decent too just FYI, although not incredibly powerful.

The only card that can deal with Martyr is Leyline of Punishment, but it's not worth dedicating 4 slots in our boards to the matchup against a Tier 2 deck. It's better to shore up our difficult, but winnable matchups, and be willing to basically concede the matchup against lifegain.

Now, if you're playing in a shop environment, and you know it's going to be facing you week in and week out, then by all means - board four Leylines and get to work.

For Pod: just side in four Torpor Orb and four Rakdos Charm and get to work.

EDIT: By the way, any tips for the Storm matchup? I'm playing bigwithdraw's list from a few pages ago; right now I'm just siding out 4x Searing Blaze and siding in 4x Rakdos Charm (to knock out their graveyard in response to a Past in Flames). Even still, it seems like a crapshoot, basically coming down to who wins the die roll. Is that a fair assessment of the matchup, or is there a better sideboard card to consider? I've thought about the Sacred Foundry/Rest in Peace plan, but I don't know if that's a good idea or not.

Quote from divisionbyzorro

The only card that can deal with Martyr is Leyline of Punishment, but it's not worth dedicating 4 slots in our boards to the matchup against a Tier 2 deck. It's better to shore up our difficult, but winnable matchups, and be willing to basically concede the matchup against lifegain.

Now, if you're playing in a shop environment, and you know it's going to be facing you week in and week out, then by all means - board four Leylines and get to work.

For Pod: just side in four Torpor Orb and four Rakdos Charm and get to work.

EDIT: By the way, any tips for the Storm matchup? I'm playing bigwithdraw's list from a few pages ago; right now I'm just siding out 4x Searing Blaze and siding in 4x Rakdos Charm (to knock out their graveyard in response to a Past in Flames). Even still, it seems like a crapshoot, basically coming down to who wins the die roll. Is that a fair assessment of the matchup, or is there a better sideboard card to consider? I've thought about the Sacred Foundry/Rest in Peace plan, but I don't know if that's a good idea or not.

I played 3 Grafdigger's Cage as well, which helped. With rakdo's charms that's 7 ways to slow them down. It's pretty much a coin toss really though - they take a lot of self damage from probes/fetches/shocklands/painlands so it's not as uphill as it seems if you can at least see 1 hate card.

Quote from bigwithdraw

I played 3 Grafdigger's Cage as well, which helped. With rakdo's charms that's 7 ways to slow them down. It's pretty much a coin toss really though - they take a lot of self damage from probes/fetches/shocklands/painlands so it's not as uphill as it seems if you can at least see 1 hate card.

What did you take out for the Cages? The Blazes were obvious candidates for boarding out since they're absolutely terrible against Storm, but I'm not sure what else I'd be willing to take out.