I love the idea of making a deck without creatures, but I love the idea of burning the opponent and their creatures single handed.
So my question is, can a Red Burn deck with no creatures, become viable within the current standard gameplay? I can see it may be able work, but I'd like to see other point of opinions from other planeswalkers.
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
It'd be hard. Almost all mono-red decks are better off with creatures to take in early beats. The closest thing to making your idea work would be some kind of counter burn list but even those lists are better with snapcaster, augur of bolas, and restoration angel.
Devil's Play wont go off with Epic Exp., it's X value, so the result would be 0 damage.
... Apparently you have no idea how the deck works. Epic Experiment is just used in this deck for mainly getting Boundless Realms for massive ramps. And this EpEx deck would run at least 2 Increasing Vengeance.
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Just a casual guy playing around with expensive cards.
no...there aren't enough reasonable burn spells, even the creatures are subpar.
you have Brimstone Volley as the only truly "good" burn spell, and that's pretty loose looking back at when mono-red was actually a reasonable strategy...since...goblin guide/lightning bolt/searing blaze/koth
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Standard:
Bident Layers B Devotion RG Devotion UW Control Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod Legacy: DeathBlade RUG Delver BUG Control
Mono red is in no way competitive, not even remotely close right now. Not even at the FNM level. The creatures available are all terrible, and the cheap burn spells we have right now aren't great either. Mortars is the best one, but that can't dome them.
Mono red is in no way competitive, not even remotely close right now. Not even at the FNM level. The creatures available are all terrible, and the cheap burn spells we have right now aren't great either. Mortars is the best one, but that can't dome them.
Wait what? Im pretty certain Rakdos Cackler is pretty good. Ash Zealot is also amazing (unless you call a 2/2 haste first strike that punishes them for using lingering souls/Rites/Snapcaster horrible). Zealous Conscripts is a good creature. Oh and don't forget about Thundermaw Hellkite.
As for burn I guess we have already forgotten about Bonfire of the damned. Oh and thunderous wrath actually isnt that bad in a Burn shell (5 damage for R is pretty good).Oh and Devil's Play is still a pretty good burn spell. Oh and there is still Pillar of flame which is decent removal and burn for 1. Oh we also have thunderbolt which is pretty decent and we have Volcanic Geyser which is an instant speel Devil's Play.
Mono-red burn is actually quite playable in an FNM scene.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
You have to run R/B and a full grip of Slaughter games mian board. When you see your opponent playing green, name Thragtusk the first time and restoration angel the next. Its real hard for a red burnish type deck to beat life gain. Usually 8-12 points of life gain puts the game out of reach. Plus, I dont think a burn deck can be made without creatures. Cards like Vexing Devil, Ash Zealot, and Gutter snipe are burn spells with legs.
Mono red is in no way competitive, not even remotely close right now. Not even at the FNM level. The creatures available are all terrible, and the cheap burn spells we have right now aren't great either. Mortars is the best one, but that can't dome them.
Lol been 3-1ing and 4-0ing MTGO dailies for the last 2 weeks playing Mono-R. I think you completely are off the mark here. Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite, Zealous Constripts late-game. along with early hasty beats in the form of Ash Zealot, Rakdos Shredfreak, and Rakdos Cackler. Then the burn that acts as removal for more creature beats or face burn to close games up like Brimstone Volley, Pillar of flame, and Searing Spear. Mono-R can DEFINITELY be competetive right now, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't viable. Creatureless burn isn't viable, but Mono-R is a competetive archetype, I'll point you to MTGO daily results and the competetive sub-forum as evidence.
You can get pretty close with a B/R zombies build replacing Rakdos Cackler for Vexing Devil. Direct Damage spells are Vexing Devil, Brimstone Volley, Searing Spear, Pillar of Flame, Geralf's Messenger, Blood Artist, and Bump in the Night. Really the only cards the deck runs that don't go to the face are Falkenrath Aristocrat, Gravecrawler, and Diregraf Ghoul.
I've won through a Thragtusk, 2 Centaur Healer, and a Sphinx Revelation set to X=4.
RDW is somewhat viable and so is Radkos but that's not what OP asked.
The reason it doesn't work is that creatures are much more efficient - they do their damage every turn. Most often, you will run out of gas while your opponent has board presence. As aforementioned, maybe an Izzet build with counter burn. Maybe even keyrunes that aren't creatures in and of themselves but can give you mana when needed and beat for two when needed. If you have access to all the dual lands, maybe even B/R/U for Bump in the Night and Sign in Blood.
The problem with burn-oriented aggro decks (a true burn deck a la Legacy Burn is impossible, but aggro decks with burn come close) is that you need a 55%+ draw to beat a lot of opposing 45%+ draws. All they need is a Centaur Healer, or a Pillar and a Snapcaster, and you suddenly have to run perfect over the next 2-3 draw steps or else they stabilize and you just lose. It's a viable strategy, especially if you run "gotcha" cards like Nightbird's Clutches, Threaten effects (Traitorous Blood or Treacherous Instinct), and so on, but you need to play extremely tight AND get lucky if you want to win 4+ rounds. If all you want to do is 3-0-1 or 3-1 an FNM Swiss and then win one top 8 match to split top 4 (which is how things go at my local FNM basically every week), it's totally reasonable to imagine doing that with mono-red or R/b aggro, you just Hellrider people to death or steal their Thragtusk and kill them with it the turn after they play it. But if you're asking if this strategy is going to win a 7+ round tournament, like an SCG Open or something, the answer is definitely not ... sooner or later you just flood out and die or your opponent kept a hand with 5 perfect cards out of 7 and your draw is merely average.
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I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
The quality of burn is at an all time low and there is more life gain in the format than there has been in a long time. Burn is the furthest it has been from competitive in ages.
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Last season you had Incinerate to give you twelve 3 damage spells for 1R. That was the core of the burn deck. You also had Grim Lavamancer, who is absurdly good. There was not as much life gain in the format either ~ you now routinely have to deal 25-30 damage instead of 20 ~ and you don't have Shrine of Burning Rage to steal wins with
But now you're playing Radkos Aggro, which we know is good.
What if you wanted to go creatureless? Yes Vexing Devil and Messenger are (usually) four to the head, but what if we decided not to use them?
I think the point of going creatureless is to invalidate opposing removal. None of the creatures I've mentioned are good removal targets. Messenger still domes you for 4. Blood Artist still pings for w/e and makes all your other creatures even more removal resistent. Vexing Devil is usually Lava Spike+, but if they do let it sit there, you've spent 1 mana for a 4/3. Removal or no, that's a good bargain.
I guess if I was trying to be literally creatureless I'd play american superfriends. Tibalt seems like he'd be a reliable ~5 damage backed up by sweepers. Chandra can double your searing Spears, and Jace 4 can prevent you from flooding out.
Edit: or you could cut the white and play Bonfire and Mizzium mortars instead?
I think the point of going creatureless is to invalidate opposing removal. None of the creatures I've mentioned are good removal targets. Messenger still domes you for 4. Blood Artist still pings for w/e and makes all your other creatures even more removal resistent. Vexing Devil is usually Lava Spike+, but if they do let it sit there, you've spent 1 mana for a 4/3. Removal or no, that's a good bargain.
I guess if I was trying to be literally creatureless I'd play american superfriends. Tibalt seems like he'd be a reliable ~5 damage backed up by sweepers. Chandra can double your searing Spears, and Jace 4 can prevent you from flooding out.
Edit: or you could cut the white and play Bonfire and Mizzium mortars instead?
I get your point but I think in this case the idea of going creatureless was to go creatureless. American or Grixis control both sound good.
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So my question is, can a Red Burn deck with no creatures, become viable within the current standard gameplay? I can see it may be able work, but I'd like to see other point of opinions from other planeswalkers.
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Wanted Card List: (PM me)
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Ravages of War
1 Swords to Plowshares (Judge)
1 Land Tax (Judge)
U
1 Mana Vortex
B
1 Desolation Angel (Foil)
1 Guardian Beast
1 Contamination
R
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
G
1 Food Chain
WUBRG
1 Rohgahh of Kher Keep
X
1 Charcoal Diamond (Foil)
1 Fellwar Stone (Foil)
T
1 Temple Garden (Foil)
3 Mutavault
1 Kor Haven
Devil's Play wont go off with Epic Exp., it's X value, so the result would be 0 damage.
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
... Apparently you have no idea how the deck works. Epic Experiment is just used in this deck for mainly getting Boundless Realms for massive ramps. And this EpEx deck would run at least 2 Increasing Vengeance.
/thread
Currently Playing:
Brewing for Rotation
And some EDH
Could actually work...Might have to be a R/U burn deck to have no need for creatures.
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
you have Brimstone Volley as the only truly "good" burn spell, and that's pretty loose looking back at when mono-red was actually a reasonable strategy...since...goblin guide/lightning bolt/searing blaze/koth
Bident Layers
B Devotion
RG Devotion
UW Control
Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod
Legacy:
DeathBlade
RUG Delver
BUG Control
---
BRG Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
WUB Sharuum, the Hegemon
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest
Wait what? Im pretty certain Rakdos Cackler is pretty good. Ash Zealot is also amazing (unless you call a 2/2 haste first strike that punishes them for using lingering souls/Rites/Snapcaster horrible). Zealous Conscripts is a good creature. Oh and don't forget about Thundermaw Hellkite.
As for burn I guess we have already forgotten about Bonfire of the damned. Oh and thunderous wrath actually isnt that bad in a Burn shell (5 damage for R is pretty good).Oh and Devil's Play is still a pretty good burn spell. Oh and there is still Pillar of flame which is decent removal and burn for 1. Oh we also have thunderbolt which is pretty decent and we have Volcanic Geyser which is an instant speel Devil's Play.
Mono-red burn is actually quite playable in an FNM scene.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Lol been 3-1ing and 4-0ing MTGO dailies for the last 2 weeks playing Mono-R. I think you completely are off the mark here. Hellrider, Thundermaw Hellkite, Zealous Constripts late-game. along with early hasty beats in the form of Ash Zealot, Rakdos Shredfreak, and Rakdos Cackler. Then the burn that acts as removal for more creature beats or face burn to close games up like Brimstone Volley, Pillar of flame, and Searing Spear. Mono-R can DEFINITELY be competetive right now, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't viable. Creatureless burn isn't viable, but Mono-R is a competetive archetype, I'll point you to MTGO daily results and the competetive sub-forum as evidence.
Standard:
GBWAggressive Junk TokensGBW
"Some convictions are so strong that the world must break to accommodate them."
I've won through a Thragtusk, 2 Centaur Healer, and a Sphinx Revelation set to X=4.
The reason it doesn't work is that creatures are much more efficient - they do their damage every turn. Most often, you will run out of gas while your opponent has board presence. As aforementioned, maybe an Izzet build with counter burn. Maybe even keyrunes that aren't creatures in and of themselves but can give you mana when needed and beat for two when needed. If you have access to all the dual lands, maybe even B/R/U for Bump in the Night and Sign in Blood.
Edit: Posted a possible cardlist: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=9287157#post9287157
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
Want to see me in action? Check out my stream! Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Full archive available.
Want to play better magic? Come join us at diestoremoval.com
Bump in the night can also give you 6 if the game goes late.
But now you're playing Radkos Aggro, which we know is good.
What if you wanted to go creatureless? Yes Vexing Devil and Messenger are (usually) four to the head, but what if we decided not to use them?
Now, you cannot go creatureless, but as a core:
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Vexing Devil
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Searing Spear
4 Thunderbolt
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Bump in the Night
22 Land
leaves you needing 6 spells. I suggest some sort of way to recur resources and some way to proactively fight lifegain.
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I think the point of going creatureless is to invalidate opposing removal. None of the creatures I've mentioned are good removal targets. Messenger still domes you for 4. Blood Artist still pings for w/e and makes all your other creatures even more removal resistent. Vexing Devil is usually Lava Spike+, but if they do let it sit there, you've spent 1 mana for a 4/3. Removal or no, that's a good bargain.
I guess if I was trying to be literally creatureless I'd play american superfriends. Tibalt seems like he'd be a reliable ~5 damage backed up by sweepers. Chandra can double your searing Spears, and Jace 4 can prevent you from flooding out.
Edit: or you could cut the white and play Bonfire and Mizzium mortars instead?
I get your point but I think in this case the idea of going creatureless was to go creatureless. American or Grixis control both sound good.