More for fun and to better understand Burn than anything concrete, I decided to test out Gonti's Machinations in my Mardu burn list. I gotta say, I've been pleasantly surprised by it. I initially thought it would be far too slow for Burn, but it's surprisingly easy to hit two energy counters. I've found that one of two things are happening--either the opponent is hitting me, or they aren't. If they are, I'm getting energy. If they aren't, It's doing a Shrine of Burning Rage impression that costs no mana to pop, while I'm drawing cards that don't need energy, or drawing fetches that can be cracked to give me energy. In addition, I've been waiting to pop the card until I need it, to gain more energy in case I ever draw a second one. Of course, they're great in multiples, each instance of damage giving the energy needed to pop one of the cards. My guess is that Gonti's is about a turn slower than Rift Bolt on average. The one major downside is that it's an awful topdeck if you and your opponent are both staring at lethal, and yes that's a very real negative. I've played perhaps 40 or so games with it and it hasn't happened to me yet, but I can see why that would be brutal.
The deck has some deckbuilding considerations. I play fetch heavy, both to help ensure I get my colors when I need them, and also to help trigger Gonti. I moved Blaze to the side, because sometimes I want to fetch on my turn for Gonti, and because the format has slowed down so much I don't believe it's the auto-kill spell it used to be (and also because I needed room to pack everything in here). Also, you have to accept you'll be starting every game at 14. You just will. My hope is that my eight sources of maindeck lifegain will help mitigate that.
Here's the list I've been running. It runs 22 different versions of Lightning Bolt, to my knowledge the most of any deck in Modern.
The deck is designed to be as efficient at goldfishing as possible, and needs about 8.3 mana to drop someone from 20.
Wow! Now there is a very interesting card addition.
It does look a little weird upon first inspection. However dealing 3 damage and gaining 3 life for one mana investment is pretty crazy! If the deck can function on 18 lands, that's pretty incredible too.
Once you have the energy it can function at instant speed too, being able to activate it when you want it. I feel like this should be useful somehow in play, but can't think of any examples yet.
Curious to know how this works out!
Yeah, the card was definitely talked about when it first got spoiled, but it was generally decided that it wasn't very good. To be honest, I was one of the people thinking that as well.
It's funny, even with 18 lands I find myself flooding more than I do starved. I really love the low curve of this build, and I feel like it has many of the benefits of the Mardu builds going around, without playing weaker 1 mana burn spells or too many Shard Volleys to make that happen.
One game, I was playing against some sort of dredge/aggro deck. I think it was that new dredgevine deck floating around, or something similar to it. I had a Gonti's out with an energy counter already. He went to his turn, played a swiftspear, bolted me for three (giving me a second energy counter), then used the bolt to fuel a Become Immense. He swung at me for lethal, but I popped the Gonti's in response, surviving it. I was able to finish him off next turn.
Another game I played a Gonti's, then fetched (one energy counter). Played a second Gonti's, then fetched (three counters). Played a THIRD Gonti's, then fetched (6 counters). Then popped them all for an 18 point lifeswing.
Gonti's definitely has some hoops you have to jump through. But, the things is, all of the hoops you need to jump through to make it happen, tends to happen naturally as an effect of playing a three color deck in the modern format. I need to take damage twice? I fetch almost every turn, and opponents are usually trying to kill me with creatures. It stretches my manabase to three colors, making it more painful? The card gains me the life back. It's a permanent and can be destroyed? Please bring in enchantment removal against me, I'm begging you. Not to mention, Abrupt Decay is at an all-time low. It's too slow of a card? False--it's just as fast as the opponent dictates it to be, based on their level of aggression. The times when it's slow are the times where you can afford for it to be slow.
It seems like a really uniquely designed card that has answers built in to all of its problems, not only in the card itself but the format as a whole.
I decided to look into the history of Modern Burn decks, and ended up crawling all of MTGGoldfish back to August 2011 and saving it into a local database. I then found out that MTGGoldfish appears to be missing GPs and SCGs from 2014 and earlier (only a few of each are there), so I went to mtgtop8 and crawled everything that's 2 stars or higher from December 2014 back to August 2011. That comes out to 61381 total Modern decks. A first pass of checking for deck titles that include the word "Burn" grabs a lot of the Burn decks, but it also includes "Zoo Burn" decks (which are really just Zoo decks with AC and BC) a couple gems called "Burning Merfolk" and one deck called "RUBW Burn" that's actually a Lightning Storm Ad Nauseam style deck without Ad Nauseam. It also misses every deck called "Red Deck Wins" that is actually Burn as well as missing everything from early MTGGoldfish history where all decks were labeled by their colors. So, I check to see if the list includes 3 or more of the following cards: Rift Bolt, Lava Spike, Bump in the Night, Guide/Swift, Eidolon, Spark Elemental, or Hellspark Elemental and I label that as a Burn deck. I believe there's some overlap still with some of the borderline Zoo builds, but I'm not going to worry about it. This gives me 3705 Burn decks from August 2011 to today.
The first interesting thing to look at is color composition, and we can compare maindeck only and full deck.
Maindeck: The early days are generally either mono-R or RB. Boros Charm hadn't caught on yet and neither had Lightning Helix (which has been around the whole time). I don't believe that Burn was hugely popular in these days and therefore you wouldn't run into Leyline of Sanctity much. Premium removal for Leyline didn't show up until DGM/THS, anyway, outside of straight Disenchant. 2013 was pretty much split between R, RB, and Mardu builds. It appears that there was a shift to mono-R when Eidolon was printed, with some RB, RW, and Mardu mixed in. Late 2014 into early 2015 was a silly time, with RU and Jeskai Burn seeing play because of Treasure Cruise, but the banhammer fixed that. Eidolon had given burn a bump in power and we saw a spike in the number of Burn decks in 2014 and 2015, which would have caused a bump in Leylines and required hate for it and that pushed most to Wear//Tear and DRev. RW maindecks were the most common build in early 2015. From mid-2015 through to this year, Naya maindecks were most common but we're now seeing more RW maindecks.
Full deck: There's not a huge difference here except that we don't see a huge drop off in Naya this year, because most are still playing Destructive Revelry even if they dropped Nacatl and Atarka's Command. There's a slight drop off due to a slight increase in straight RW and Mardu builds. Of note, RW has been a steady 10% ish of Burn decks for a while.
Creatures: Goblin Guide has been a staple the whole time. Swiftspear became a staple within a few months of printing. Eidolon did as well. Before 2014/2015, there was a lot more variation in creatures. Spark Elemental was the least common, with Keldon Marauders slightly more. Hellspark Elemental was a staple at times, and so was Vexing Devil. All of those saw a drop when Eidolon showed up and this variation was pretty much killed by Swiftspear. Grim Lavamancer has seen play in a lot of decks for the whole period, but at less than 4x quantities and there's some variation. The other interesting one is that Deathrite Shaman saw play from late 2012 to early 2014 when it was banned, and it often did it without even being able to activate the green ability. It turns out that Burn is happy to play busted cards like DRS and Cruise. Nacatl saw play in approximately 50% of decks from mid 2015 through early 2017, but is nowhere to be seen now.
Spells: Flames of the Blood Hand used to see play before Skullcrack was printed, fell off for a little while after Skullcrack, and returned shortly after that when people wanted more lifegain hate. It's since died off because of Atarka's Command. Skullcrack saw a drop due to AC. Shard Volley used to see frequent play but has dropped off since mid 2015 (AC showed up) and it hasn't seen a resurgence. Spike and Rift Bolt have been constants. Atarka's Command showed up in March of 2015 and reached about 70% usage by May. Nacatl didn't start seeing play until June and reached about 70% in August, as I've always said, there was a delay of a few months from AC being adopted to Nacatl joining the party.
Rakdos Charm saw significant play as Twin and Pod hate, but fell off over time. Rain of Gore never really saw significant play. Searing Blaze has been a staple forever. Boros Charm saw some play from shortly after is was printed but didn't become a staple until late 2014 along with DRev. Wear//Tear has been steady in low numbers. Lightning Helix was never played that much until Boros Charm took off and then it saw a drop when Atarka's Command/Nacatl was everywhere, but it has returned to being a staple.
I noticed at least one deck from 2011 that played Shrine of Burning Rage, back when there wasn't much else to play.
Pretty new to Burn and going to my first big tournament in two weeks. Meta unknown. I would appreciate some advice regarding my sideboard (Mainboard is standard Boros list with 19 lands and 1 Lavamancer):
3 Destructive Revelry
2 Shattering Spree
3 Path to Exile
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Deflecting Palm
1 Searing Blood
Not sure about the Firewalkers, and would appreciate Feedback in general.
Standard Boros with 19 lands and one Lavamancer imples 4x Searing Blaze and 4x Helix. I think the 1x Searing Blood isn't necessary when 4x Blaze are mainboard, and I'd drop that for a 3rd Firewalker to see it more consistently in the mirror (3x Firewalker isn't about the need to run 3, it is about the need to see it as soon as possible in a match that goes as quickly as the mirror burn.)
Coincidentally, swapping the Blood for a firewalker exactly matches my sideboard. I'd recommend dropping a Blaze from your main for a 2nd Lavamancer, as in alot of games, 4x Blaze can be bad, and makes sideboarding all of the copies out harder. You can also drop a Helix and go to 20 land, however 19 vs 20 is a big debate...
Addendum to the above posts: It was not until December 2016 that RW maindecks started showing up again in significant numbers. And they didn't truly take over until something like April/May 2017. This supports the idea that Enemy Fast Lands were not the impetus to swift back to RW (which has been claimed by some in this thread) but rather that it was something that happened in 2017 (which I've claimed). While that shift could be somewhat explained by the 2017 meta as a whole, my hypothesis is that it's Fatal Push that did it. Wild Nacatl fell off between December 2016 and January 2017, which is when Fatal Push was printed. Some clung to Nacatl after that, but it's pretty much gone from the meta by April 2017.
It seem you are much more into Burn then I ever was (I still love the game and play every week), however work and general life responsibilities have been taking a lot of my time, and I'm simply not as knowledgable about the game, the meta, and the deck as I used to be.
If you would be interested in taking over the Burn Primer, I would be happy to pass the flame off to you!
It seem you are much more into Burn then I ever was (I still love the game and play every week), however work and general life responsibilities have been taking a lot of my time, and I'm simply not as knowledgable about the game, the meta, and the deck as I used to be.
If you would be interested in taking over the Burn Primer, I would be happy to pass the flame off to you!
Thanks for the praise and the offer. I think I could do an passable job of providing objective analysis for a primer, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it unless the Burn community here is ok with me doing it. If I can be honest, general life responsibilities have kept me from playing much at all in the last several months outside of a PPTQ, so that's an issue for me as well.
I have a few ideas that I think might be useful to people, though. I want to get my deck script fully functional so that I can goldfish games properly, and I think that would provide some useful insights. I also have my own personal game history in a spreadsheet (2392 games, 905 matches, a lot on Cockatrice) broken down by matchup. I've thought about opening that up to others who wish to self report results in order to crowd-source win-rates, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I suppose a google form could accomplish that, but it would be tedious for people to self enter a lot of single matches.
It seem you are much more into Burn then I ever was (I still love the game and play every week), however work and general life responsibilities have been taking a lot of my time, and I'm simply not as knowledgable about the game, the meta, and the deck as I used to be.
If you would be interested in taking over the Burn Primer, I would be happy to pass the flame off to you!
Thanks for the praise and the offer. I think I could do an passable job of providing objective analysis for a primer, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it unless the Burn community here is ok with me doing it. If I can be honest, general life responsibilities have kept me from playing much at all in the last several months outside of a PPTQ, so that's an issue for me as well.
I have a few ideas that I think might be useful to people, though. I want to get my deck script fully functional so that I can goldfish games properly, and I think that would provide some useful insights. I also have my own personal game history in a spreadsheet (2392 games, 905 matches, a lot on Cockatrice) broken down by matchup. I've thought about opening that up to others who wish to self report results in order to crowd-source win-rates, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I suppose a google form could accomplish that, but it would be tedious for people to self enter a lot of single matches.
I know I would love for you to take over the primer, not to disrespect all the work Arkaedrian put into it. If he doesn't have the time anymore, I think you'd be great at it.
It doesn't matter for us, but Lightning Strike is finally back in Standard. I just like seeing "3 damage to target creature or player" for an acceptable mana cost.
From my testing, the shrine has been good, but not enough to cut Eidolon.
Currently testing 3 eidolon and 3 shrine; it seems better for me, but I might change to 4/3 or 4/4 (Moved some skullcrack to the side to make place, since skullcrack is usually low impact in game 1)
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"What's your plan?" Gideon asked.
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
Word of warning: don't get huge expectations solely because you're playing a list that was used in a high profile tournament. There's some tendency for new players to do that and then get discouraged if things don't match those expectations.
For the record, I think loic's reasoning is unsound, especially in regards to death's shadow. His reasons are essentially that some matchups are downright bad, therefore drop eidolon for shrine. Affinity isn't downright bad. GDS isn't downright bad. Even ETron isn't awful, but can be a race.
Edit: since you're a new burn player, searing blaze requires 2 targets to cast but will deal damage if at least 1 target remains legal. You may see someone kill their own creature and then claim that blaze fizzles, but it absolutely doesn't.
I play 4 Guide, 4 Swift, 4 Eidolon, 1-2 Grim Lavamancer (currently 1). I'm also still on Atarka's Command int he maindeck because I think it's far more powerful than Skullcrack. However, Naya maindecks are in the minority right now, as proven by my posts above.
I've heard too many stories about people getting burned because they don't know that Searing Blaze ruling, so it's always at the top of my list of advice for new players.
I'm likely playing Burn in a PPTQ Saturday - my current mainboard has 3 Blazes, 3 Eidolons and 3 Satyr Firedancers (along with 19 lands and 4 ofs for the rest of the deck). I really like the firedancers in testing but I'm nervous about how they'll play out this weekend. Any opinions?
I'm likely playing Burn in a PPTQ Saturday - my current mainboard has 3 Blazes, 3 Eidolons and 3 Satyr Firedancers (along with 19 lands and 4 ofs for the rest of the deck). I really like the firedancers in testing but I'm nervous about how they'll play out this weekend. Any opinions?
It depends largely on what you expect to play against. I don't like the idea of mainboarding the Firedancers. They can probably pull a lot of weight in matchups like Affinity, Merfolk, and Elves, so it's a decent sideboard card, but they're next to useless against stuff like UW Control, Shadow, or any Valakut and Tron variants. Also, they're one of your worst topdecks in almost any lategame situation, they can be removed in response to your spells, and they don't really deal any damage to players on their own, so be aware of those weaknesses while playing (though I'm sure you are if you've been testing). For those reasons, I personally wouldn't want more than two.
I remember people were testing it a couple of years ago, and it was determined to be a somewhat unreliable card with a powerful ceiling but a pretty low floor. Lavamancer is the more consistent option for most of the matches where you'd want Firedancer.
I wouldn't play Satyr Firedancer unless I was expecting some degenerate creature aggro meta full of Affinity, Elves, Fish, Zoo, and other decks loaded with creatures that would die to Bolt.
I've found a lot of utility against both BantDrazi and ETron with Firedancer which is what tempted me to keep them in and why I bothered asking at all.
(Boros Charm kills TKS, bolt/spike help kill Smasher without discarding, etc)
The more I think about it, the more I think you're likely right - a 2 of in the side at best for aggro matchups and get some more burn (and the 4th eidolon) in the main.
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Yeah, the card was definitely talked about when it first got spoiled, but it was generally decided that it wasn't very good. To be honest, I was one of the people thinking that as well.
It's funny, even with 18 lands I find myself flooding more than I do starved. I really love the low curve of this build, and I feel like it has many of the benefits of the Mardu builds going around, without playing weaker 1 mana burn spells or too many Shard Volleys to make that happen.
One game, I was playing against some sort of dredge/aggro deck. I think it was that new dredgevine deck floating around, or something similar to it. I had a Gonti's out with an energy counter already. He went to his turn, played a swiftspear, bolted me for three (giving me a second energy counter), then used the bolt to fuel a Become Immense. He swung at me for lethal, but I popped the Gonti's in response, surviving it. I was able to finish him off next turn.
Another game I played a Gonti's, then fetched (one energy counter). Played a second Gonti's, then fetched (three counters). Played a THIRD Gonti's, then fetched (6 counters). Then popped them all for an 18 point lifeswing.
Gonti's definitely has some hoops you have to jump through. But, the things is, all of the hoops you need to jump through to make it happen, tends to happen naturally as an effect of playing a three color deck in the modern format. I need to take damage twice? I fetch almost every turn, and opponents are usually trying to kill me with creatures. It stretches my manabase to three colors, making it more painful? The card gains me the life back. It's a permanent and can be destroyed? Please bring in enchantment removal against me, I'm begging you. Not to mention, Abrupt Decay is at an all-time low. It's too slow of a card? False--it's just as fast as the opponent dictates it to be, based on their level of aggression. The times when it's slow are the times where you can afford for it to be slow.
It seems like a really uniquely designed card that has answers built in to all of its problems, not only in the card itself but the format as a whole.
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens
Important dates:
The first interesting thing to look at is color composition, and we can compare maindeck only and full deck.
Maindeck: The early days are generally either mono-R or RB. Boros Charm hadn't caught on yet and neither had Lightning Helix (which has been around the whole time). I don't believe that Burn was hugely popular in these days and therefore you wouldn't run into Leyline of Sanctity much. Premium removal for Leyline didn't show up until DGM/THS, anyway, outside of straight Disenchant. 2013 was pretty much split between R, RB, and Mardu builds. It appears that there was a shift to mono-R when Eidolon was printed, with some RB, RW, and Mardu mixed in. Late 2014 into early 2015 was a silly time, with RU and Jeskai Burn seeing play because of Treasure Cruise, but the banhammer fixed that. Eidolon had given burn a bump in power and we saw a spike in the number of Burn decks in 2014 and 2015, which would have caused a bump in Leylines and required hate for it and that pushed most to Wear//Tear and DRev. RW maindecks were the most common build in early 2015. From mid-2015 through to this year, Naya maindecks were most common but we're now seeing more RW maindecks.
Full deck: There's not a huge difference here except that we don't see a huge drop off in Naya this year, because most are still playing Destructive Revelry even if they dropped Nacatl and Atarka's Command. There's a slight drop off due to a slight increase in straight RW and Mardu builds. Of note, RW has been a steady 10% ish of Burn decks for a while.
Spells: Flames of the Blood Hand used to see play before Skullcrack was printed, fell off for a little while after Skullcrack, and returned shortly after that when people wanted more lifegain hate. It's since died off because of Atarka's Command. Skullcrack saw a drop due to AC. Shard Volley used to see frequent play but has dropped off since mid 2015 (AC showed up) and it hasn't seen a resurgence. Spike and Rift Bolt have been constants. Atarka's Command showed up in March of 2015 and reached about 70% usage by May. Nacatl didn't start seeing play until June and reached about 70% in August, as I've always said, there was a delay of a few months from AC being adopted to Nacatl joining the party.
Rakdos Charm saw significant play as Twin and Pod hate, but fell off over time. Rain of Gore never really saw significant play. Searing Blaze has been a staple forever. Boros Charm saw some play from shortly after is was printed but didn't become a staple until late 2014 along with DRev. Wear//Tear has been steady in low numbers. Lightning Helix was never played that much until Boros Charm took off and then it saw a drop when Atarka's Command/Nacatl was everywhere, but it has returned to being a staple.
I noticed at least one deck from 2011 that played Shrine of Burning Rage, back when there wasn't much else to play.
Coincidentally, swapping the Blood for a firewalker exactly matches my sideboard. I'd recommend dropping a Blaze from your main for a 2nd Lavamancer, as in alot of games, 4x Blaze can be bad, and makes sideboarding all of the copies out harder. You can also drop a Helix and go to 20 land, however 19 vs 20 is a big debate...
BWTokensBW
RWBurnRW
UFaeriesU
It seem you are much more into Burn then I ever was (I still love the game and play every week), however work and general life responsibilities have been taking a lot of my time, and I'm simply not as knowledgable about the game, the meta, and the deck as I used to be.
If you would be interested in taking over the Burn Primer, I would be happy to pass the flame off to you!
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens
Thanks for the praise and the offer. I think I could do an passable job of providing objective analysis for a primer, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it unless the Burn community here is ok with me doing it. If I can be honest, general life responsibilities have kept me from playing much at all in the last several months outside of a PPTQ, so that's an issue for me as well.
I have a few ideas that I think might be useful to people, though. I want to get my deck script fully functional so that I can goldfish games properly, and I think that would provide some useful insights. I also have my own personal game history in a spreadsheet (2392 games, 905 matches, a lot on Cockatrice) broken down by matchup. I've thought about opening that up to others who wish to self report results in order to crowd-source win-rates, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I suppose a google form could accomplish that, but it would be tedious for people to self enter a lot of single matches.
I know I would love for you to take over the primer, not to disrespect all the work Arkaedrian put into it. If he doesn't have the time anymore, I think you'd be great at it.
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens
I just jumped into modern burn after initially looking for a cheap legacy buy-in.
Since I was not really sure what list to orient on I decided I give Loic le Briand´s list a try.
What I noticed in general that he -4 Eidolon and +4. Can someone explain me the reasons for that please?
BR
Max
UTron
He posted his reasoning here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LavaSpike/comments/6v3sxy/why_shrine_over_eidolon_thoughts_xposted_in/
From my testing, the shrine has been good, but not enough to cut Eidolon.
Currently testing 3 eidolon and 3 shrine; it seems better for me, but I might change to 4/3 or 4/4 (Moved some skullcrack to the side to make place, since skullcrack is usually low impact in game 1)
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
I will just try Loic´s list since the reasoning behind seems pretty fair to me - and the local meta is basically death shadow and tron.
Greets
Max
UTron
For the record, I think loic's reasoning is unsound, especially in regards to death's shadow. His reasons are essentially that some matchups are downright bad, therefore drop eidolon for shrine. Affinity isn't downright bad. GDS isn't downright bad. Even ETron isn't awful, but can be a race.
Edit: since you're a new burn player, searing blaze requires 2 targets to cast but will deal damage if at least 1 target remains legal. You may see someone kill their own creature and then claim that blaze fizzles, but it absolutely doesn't.
What are you running in your current list? 12 Creatures(4GG,4MS, 4EotgR)?
I usually don´t expect much from bringing a new deck to a tourney, so I won´t be disappointed if it or me fails.
I´m also pretty aware of the searing blaze ruling.
BR
Max
UTron
I've heard too many stories about people getting burned because they don't know that Searing Blaze ruling, so it's always at the top of my list of advice for new players.
It depends largely on what you expect to play against. I don't like the idea of mainboarding the Firedancers. They can probably pull a lot of weight in matchups like Affinity, Merfolk, and Elves, so it's a decent sideboard card, but they're next to useless against stuff like UW Control, Shadow, or any Valakut and Tron variants. Also, they're one of your worst topdecks in almost any lategame situation, they can be removed in response to your spells, and they don't really deal any damage to players on their own, so be aware of those weaknesses while playing (though I'm sure you are if you've been testing). For those reasons, I personally wouldn't want more than two.
I remember people were testing it a couple of years ago, and it was determined to be a somewhat unreliable card with a powerful ceiling but a pretty low floor. Lavamancer is the more consistent option for most of the matches where you'd want Firedancer.
(Boros Charm kills TKS, bolt/spike help kill Smasher without discarding, etc)
The more I think about it, the more I think you're likely right - a 2 of in the side at best for aggro matchups and get some more burn (and the 4th eidolon) in the main.