To be honest, I have a heavy dislike of Mono-Red Burn - I think it's ridiculously generic, uninnovative, and boring to play. Also there's so little room for "improvement" with simply the best burn cards taking all the slots with no room to spare.
However, the one thing that really ticked me off was the absolute zero interaction between players. At least with Counterspells you have to think a little and try to play around them - my first "generic" mono-red burn was nothing but throwing burn spells at the opponent's face turn after turn. I hated it, and the game/atmosphere was really awkward.
So this is my attempt to improve player interaction while making a semi-competitive mono-red burn deck:
Card Choices:
Skullscorch and Browbeat - these cards are interesting choices for a burn deck. Browbeat is particularly notorious for having dissenting opinions - some love it, some hate it. When only 1 copy of Browbeat is played against you, it's not too difficult of a choice, but what if there were 2 on the stack, right after another? What kind of choice would you make in that scenario, knowing that your options are either, 1) Take 10 Damage, 2) Let opponent draw 6 cards, or 3) Take 5 damage and let your opponent draw 3?
The rest of the deck is standard burn material: Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt (which is mana friendly to Fork/Reverberate), and a disputable choice...Searing Blaze. I know there are better options, but I really wanted a 2-for-1 card in here. I know Flamebreak is better, so it will probably be replaced by that eventually.
Lastly, I know 24 lands is pretty high for a burn deck. I'm considering even lowering it to 22, but considering the deck might need to get to 5 mana and with all the land-sacrificing spells, I think 23/24 might be better.
So, any suggestions/improvements/comments? Always appreciated
DLink, you've got a very well thoughtout deck...and hit pretty much evey thought I had.
Firebolt is another option for 2/in/1'ing, and would lend itself well to your higher land count.
I think you are a tad high on land, perhaps 2 fewer for some Cursed Scroll?
Burn is after all a comboish deck designed to generate CA thru the reduction of the opponent's life total. It's a linear deck that wins on turn 3-4, thus not supposed to be interactive, heck I never had to think even when my opponent play counterspells until he drops counterbalance and sensei's divining top.
The efficiency and budget makes it competitive.
I would really suggest Sligh or Zoo if you're looking for more interaction, or Mono red aggro with Blood Moon and Trinisphere.
Burn is after all a comboish deck designed to generate CA thru the reduction of the opponent's life total.
I've read some articles on burn before trying to make this deck, and some people did say that burn was like "storm combo spread out over 3~5 turns". Quite frankly, I think that's an insult to the greatness that is TEPS. Burn has to be the furthest thing away from the complexity of comboing out with TEPS...
Also, generating Card Advantage through the reduction of life total? I thought that was called "winning". I've never heard of CA being referred to as reduction of life total... If anything, I know burn creates "virtual card advantage" by making opponent's cards irrelevant (i.e. creature removal).
It's a linear deck that wins on turn 3-4, thus not supposed to be interactive, heck I never had to think even when my opponent play counterspells until he drops counterbalance and sensei's divining top.
Well yeah, I know it's not supposed to be interactive, and that wins on turn 3/4/5. Everybody who plays magic pretty much knows that. I think that's a problem with burn, and it's not fun like that - which is why I'm trying to make it interactive.
And you don't think when you're facing counterspells? Do you blindly walk into Force Spike, Daze, Mana Leak? No, you bait the counter, or force the opponent to use a hard counter instead by playing around the soft counters.
The efficiency and budget makes it competitive.
Again, obvious statement, but I'd like to clarify here that I'm not making a competitive Legacy Burn deck. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't even think about putting in Browbeat or Skullscorch. Not to mention I could care less about player interaction if I was actively competing to win and solely win. I know you have lots of Legacy experience (or at least, I think you do) so a lot of your suggestions come from that area. I appreciate it, but I'd rather not make a carbon copy of a cookie-cutter burn deck.
I would really suggest Sligh or Zoo if you're looking for more interaction, or Mono red aggro with Blood Moon and Trinisphere.
No. If I wanted to play Zoo, I'd go make it. If I wanted to make Sligh, Dragon Stompy or All-In-Red, I would make it. And I would hardly say AIR and Dragon Stompy are interactive. 1st turn Trinisphere or Deus of Calamity pretty much says no to everything. Also, I hate netdecking. I make my decks to stand out, and if there's a deck floating around the internet that's too similar to mine, I immediately scrap it unless I came up with the idea first.
Now here's something good. Barbarian Ring is an excellent suggestion. Threshold will be quite easy to hit with all the Land-Sacrificing I have to do anyway. Auto-4 of.
As for the creature suggestions: Keldon Marauders is obviously strong. I love the card in fact. However, I'd like this deck to focus on maximizing the number of Fork and Reverberate targets. Therefore, no creatures, just for the sake of fun. Same goes for Cursed Scroll.
Incinerate - I debated using this instead of Searing Blaze. One of the main concerns I currently have for the deck is the lack of instants to play on the opponent's turn. Lightning Bolt is the only one at the moment. Searing Blaze is a waste to play on the opponent's turn, and Fireblast is more of a late game card. This is concerning because I would potentially like to leave mana open to copy an opponent's gamebreaking spell, and if no such spell is played, I would play an instant-burn spell.
At this point, I might cut to 23 Lands, and cut 1~2 Searing Blaze for 2~3 copies of Instant-Burn like Incinerate.
Drum: Firebolt isn't a bad choice, but I feel like it's outclassed by many other cards.
Thank you for your comments/suggestions everybody.
I'm sure you already know of it...but Pyromancer's Ascension is the fork that keeps on giving. An all red deck has a hard time activating the Ascension as your hand is luck of the draw. Adding Card selection (like scry cards, there's a red one...{R, 2dmg, scry2}, I foget what its called), or crystal ball (which is a nice card...) makes it doable.
I'm sure you already know of it...but Pyromancer's Ascension is the fork that keeps on giving. An all red deck has a hard time activating the Ascension as your hand is luck of the draw. Adding Card selection (like scry cards, there's a red one...{R, 2dmg, scry2}, I foget what its called), or crystal ball (which is a nice card...) makes it doable.
Maybe a different deck though...
DRum
Different deck without a doubt. If I needed to make it Mono-Red, perhaps something like this, just quickly off the top of my head:
I don't think that works - you have to sacrifice the mountains in the Resolution of Landslide, so if you Fork it while it's still on the stack, you'll still have to sacrifice mountains both times - making the copies irrelevant. Still, it's not a bad finisher I guess - I've never even seen it, which surprises me quite a bit.
I've read some articles on burn before trying to make this deck, and some people did say that burn was like "storm combo spread out over 3~5 turns". Quite frankly, I think that's an insult to the greatness that is TEPS. Burn has to be the furthest thing away from the complexity of comboing out with TEPS...
This has the same logic as enchantress, it works turn over turn, some people do disagree. However, Burn is not storm combo over a few turns, you can't compare this way (TEPS is better of course lol, I'm running Doomsday now thanks to the stupid banning mystical tutor by wizards). Burn and enchantress are quite similar to playing solitaire or goldfishing and does it continuously, thus comboish but not combo (if you get what I mean) =\
Also, generating Card Advantage through the reduction of life total? I thought that was called "winning". I've never heard of CA being referred to as reduction of life total... If anything, I know burn creates "virtual card advantage" by making opponent's cards irrelevant (i.e. creature removal).
Well yeah, I know it's not supposed to be interactive, and that wins on turn 3/4/5. Everybody who plays magic pretty much knows that. I think that's a problem with burn, and it's not fun like that - which is why I'm trying to make it interactive.
Excluding the portion on your opponents' fun, burn is sadly very linear =(
And you don't think when you're facing counterspells? Do you blindly walk into Force Spike, Daze, Mana Leak? No, you bait the counter, or force the opponent to use a hard counter instead by playing around the soft counters.
No, I don't I have more burn spells than they have counters The deck I played with the most counters was only 4 Force of Will, 4 Daze and 3 Spell Pierce. And they don't draw a hand full of it consistently. Decks with counterbalance run lesser counters but cb will stop most of my spells, that's where you have to think.
Also, I hate netdecking. I make my decks to stand out, and if there's a deck floating around the internet that's too similar to mine, I immediately scrap it unless I came up with the idea first.
I'm not sure about that.
When I build a deck, I determine it's overall objectivity and how it wins, and look up the database for the best cards to accomplish it (within a legacy B&R list), playtesting, then fine tuning to maximum efficiency and optimizing to metagames. Most of the time, it ends up being very similar to another deck. =\
By the way, there's a million people out there, to come out with something that someone has thought of isn't it? o_O
I'm sure you already know of it...but Pyromancer's Ascension is the fork that keeps on giving. An all red deck has a hard time activating the Ascension as your hand is luck of the draw. Adding Card selection (like scry cards, there's a red one...{R, 2dmg, scry2}, I foget what its called), or crystal ball (which is a nice card...) makes it doable.
When I build a deck, I determine it's overall objectivity and how it wins, and look up the database for the best cards to accomplish it (within a legacy B&R list), playtesting, then fine tuning to maximum efficiency and optimizing to metagames. Most of the time, it ends up being very similar to another deck. =\
By the way, there's a million people out there, to come out with something that someone has thought of isn't it? o_O
All of which are enough to make a player cringe. But I believe every reject rare has a place, and even can be ridiculously powerful. I think the decks I've made with these cards are really unique and innovative, successfully elegant, and above all, fun to use.
Yes, I also scour the Gatherer while making a deck, usually searching through thousands of cards and pondering every decision. Creating a deck is the process that makes Magic the most interesting to me, and it matters the most. I spend quite some time developing my ideas.
However, playtesting/optimizing to metagames, I think that's more for a competitive setting, like Legacy. I find it hard to "optimize" a deck to a meta, and I don't think casual should. I think casual should be prepared with general answers instead of specific answers to certain cards/decks. Playtesting is difficult, as there are too many decks to face in casual (I myself with well over 50 decks), and having to remove a card you bought already (thus wasting money) is hard for me to do. Which is why most of my decks are theoretically created and posted here for critique before I buy them.
Are you having mana issues? I personally find even 23 lands much, how about 21 to 22 lands?
23 lands was specifically to easily reach 5 mana, hopefully dropping a land every turn. The idea was at 5 mana, I can
Browbeat + Fork or Reverberate Devastating Summons + Double Fork/Reverberate. It's not so much that it's a game winning plan, but more of a fun, interesting plan. I don't really care if I lose more than win with this deck - (or with any of my decks, for that matter), as long as I win a couple, and in the way that I intend to win.
24 Mountain
Spells 36
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Devastating Summons
4 Fork
4 Reverberate
4 Searing Blaze
4 Skullscorch
4 Browbeat
4 Fireblast
2 Chain Lightning
2 Magma Jet
4 Flamebreak
4 Anarchy
3 Sulfuric Vortex
However, the one thing that really ticked me off was the absolute zero interaction between players. At least with Counterspells you have to think a little and try to play around them - my first "generic" mono-red burn was nothing but throwing burn spells at the opponent's face turn after turn. I hated it, and the game/atmosphere was really awkward.
So this is my attempt to improve player interaction while making a semi-competitive mono-red burn deck:
Card Choices:
Skullscorch and Browbeat - these cards are interesting choices for a burn deck. Browbeat is particularly notorious for having dissenting opinions - some love it, some hate it. When only 1 copy of Browbeat is played against you, it's not too difficult of a choice, but what if there were 2 on the stack, right after another? What kind of choice would you make in that scenario, knowing that your options are either, 1) Take 10 Damage, 2) Let opponent draw 6 cards, or 3) Take 5 damage and let your opponent draw 3?
I think it's a very interesting scenario.
Therefore, 8 Slots dedicated to Fork and Reverberate.
These also combo well with Fireblast and Devastating Summons. I get particularly giddy at the fact that it's possible to go Fireblast + Fork + Reverberate at 4 mana to deal 12 damage, or the 2nd scneario, where Devastating Summons + Fork + Reverberate gives you Six 5/5's. Even copying once is deadly.
The rest of the deck is standard burn material: Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt (which is mana friendly to Fork/Reverberate), and a disputable choice...Searing Blaze. I know there are better options, but I really wanted a 2-for-1 card in here. I know Flamebreak is better, so it will probably be replaced by that eventually.
Lastly, I know 24 lands is pretty high for a burn deck. I'm considering even lowering it to 22, but considering the deck might need to get to 5 mana and with all the land-sacrificing spells, I think 23/24 might be better.
So, any suggestions/improvements/comments? Always appreciated
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
Firebolt is another option for 2/in/1'ing, and would lend itself well to your higher land count.
I think you are a tad high on land, perhaps 2 fewer for some Cursed Scroll?
DRum
Old school group, sometimes more beer than cards. Revised thru Tempest block (and a little of Urza), sorry if I don't know all the new cards
Ye' Olde Schoole Casual Decks: BUReanimate -- GRAggro -- BWPestilence -- G10-land Stompy -- GRElfball -- GWEnchantress -- RAnkh Sligh -- BDiscard -- MUC "Draw-go" -- BRSuicide -- UWSkies -- UHigh Tide Mill -- WWeenie -- UMutated Bombers -- URThe great land-toss -- UB Molasass
The efficiency and budget makes it competitive.
I would really suggest Sligh or Zoo if you're looking for more interaction, or Mono red aggro with Blood Moon and Trinisphere.
By the way, why no Barbarian Ring, Keldon Marauders, Cursed Scroll, Hellspark Elemental and Incinerate?
Shivan Gorge might be fun here too.
Legacy Competitive
BUReanimatorUB
RUSneaky ShowUR(Dismantled)
GBUReanimatorUBG(Retired)
(Pre-Mystical Tutor Banning)
{RIP:July 1, 2010}
Legacy Casual
UWBag Of TricksWU
GWEnchantressWG(Budget/In construction)
WSoul SistersW
Legacy Casual - Retired
UBT.E.S. - The EGG-pic StormBU
BGrave ExistenceB
Sig by Me =)
I've read some articles on burn before trying to make this deck, and some people did say that burn was like "storm combo spread out over 3~5 turns". Quite frankly, I think that's an insult to the greatness that is TEPS. Burn has to be the furthest thing away from the complexity of comboing out with TEPS...
Also, generating Card Advantage through the reduction of life total? I thought that was called "winning". I've never heard of CA being referred to as reduction of life total... If anything, I know burn creates "virtual card advantage" by making opponent's cards irrelevant (i.e. creature removal).
Well yeah, I know it's not supposed to be interactive, and that wins on turn 3/4/5. Everybody who plays magic pretty much knows that. I think that's a problem with burn, and it's not fun like that - which is why I'm trying to make it interactive.
And you don't think when you're facing counterspells? Do you blindly walk into Force Spike, Daze, Mana Leak? No, you bait the counter, or force the opponent to use a hard counter instead by playing around the soft counters.
Again, obvious statement, but I'd like to clarify here that I'm not making a competitive Legacy Burn deck. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't even think about putting in Browbeat or Skullscorch. Not to mention I could care less about player interaction if I was actively competing to win and solely win. I know you have lots of Legacy experience (or at least, I think you do) so a lot of your suggestions come from that area. I appreciate it, but I'd rather not make a carbon copy of a cookie-cutter burn deck.
No. If I wanted to play Zoo, I'd go make it. If I wanted to make Sligh, Dragon Stompy or All-In-Red, I would make it. And I would hardly say AIR and Dragon Stompy are interactive. 1st turn Trinisphere or Deus of Calamity pretty much says no to everything. Also, I hate netdecking. I make my decks to stand out, and if there's a deck floating around the internet that's too similar to mine, I immediately scrap it unless I came up with the idea first.
Now here's something good. Barbarian Ring is an excellent suggestion. Threshold will be quite easy to hit with all the Land-Sacrificing I have to do anyway. Auto-4 of.
As for the creature suggestions: Keldon Marauders is obviously strong. I love the card in fact. However, I'd like this deck to focus on maximizing the number of Fork and Reverberate targets. Therefore, no creatures, just for the sake of fun. Same goes for Cursed Scroll.
Incinerate - I debated using this instead of Searing Blaze. One of the main concerns I currently have for the deck is the lack of instants to play on the opponent's turn. Lightning Bolt is the only one at the moment. Searing Blaze is a waste to play on the opponent's turn, and Fireblast is more of a late game card. This is concerning because I would potentially like to leave mana open to copy an opponent's gamebreaking spell, and if no such spell is played, I would play an instant-burn spell.
At this point, I might cut to 23 Lands, and cut 1~2 Searing Blaze for 2~3 copies of Instant-Burn like Incinerate.
Drum: Firebolt isn't a bad choice, but I feel like it's outclassed by many other cards.
Thank you for your comments/suggestions everybody.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
Maybe a different deck though...
DRum
Old school group, sometimes more beer than cards. Revised thru Tempest block (and a little of Urza), sorry if I don't know all the new cards
Ye' Olde Schoole Casual Decks: BUReanimate -- GRAggro -- BWPestilence -- G10-land Stompy -- GRElfball -- GWEnchantress -- RAnkh Sligh -- BDiscard -- MUC "Draw-go" -- BRSuicide -- UWSkies -- UHigh Tide Mill -- WWeenie -- UMutated Bombers -- URThe great land-toss -- UB Molasass
Different deck without a doubt. If I needed to make it Mono-Red, perhaps something like this, just quickly off the top of my head:
18 Mountain
4 Barbarian Ring
Spells
4 Flame Jab
4 Flame Jet
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Goblin Lore
4 Recoup
4 Kindle
4 Flame Burst
2 Magma Jet
2 Starstorm
2 Fiery Temper
4 Pyromancer Ascension
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
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I don't think that works - you have to sacrifice the mountains in the Resolution of Landslide, so if you Fork it while it's still on the stack, you'll still have to sacrifice mountains both times - making the copies irrelevant. Still, it's not a bad finisher I guess - I've never even seen it, which surprises me quite a bit.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
This has the same logic as enchantress, it works turn over turn, some people do disagree. However, Burn is not storm combo over a few turns, you can't compare this way (TEPS is better of course lol, I'm running Doomsday now thanks to the stupid banning mystical tutor by wizards). Burn and enchantress are quite similar to playing solitaire or goldfishing and does it continuously, thus comboish but not combo (if you get what I mean) =\
My mistake on that, you're right.
Excluding the portion on your opponents' fun, burn is sadly very linear =(
No, I don't I have more burn spells than they have counters The deck I played with the most counters was only 4 Force of Will, 4 Daze and 3 Spell Pierce. And they don't draw a hand full of it consistently. Decks with counterbalance run lesser counters but cb will stop most of my spells, that's where you have to think.
I'm not sure about that.
When I build a deck, I determine it's overall objectivity and how it wins, and look up the database for the best cards to accomplish it (within a legacy B&R list), playtesting, then fine tuning to maximum efficiency and optimizing to metagames. Most of the time, it ends up being very similar to another deck. =\
By the way, there's a million people out there, to come out with something that someone has thought of isn't it? o_O
Are you having mana issues? I personally find even 23 lands much, how about 21 to 22 lands?
Legacy Competitive
BUReanimatorUB
RUSneaky ShowUR(Dismantled)
GBUReanimatorUBG(Retired)
(Pre-Mystical Tutor Banning)
{RIP:July 1, 2010}
Legacy Casual
UWBag Of TricksWU
GWEnchantressWG(Budget/In construction)
WSoul SistersW
Legacy Casual - Retired
UBT.E.S. - The EGG-pic StormBU
BGrave ExistenceB
Sig by Me =)
You're thinking of Magma Jet.
When I build a deck, I purposefully start with a really bad card, or severely underused/ignored card, for example, my most recent decks feature as the centers of their individual decks: (Stronghold Gambit, Planar Overlay, Aysen Crusader, Haazda Shield Mate, Reversal of Fortune, Reincarnation, Spellweaver Volute, Colfenor's Urn, Celestial Dawn, Winter's Chill, Guided Passage.)
All of which are enough to make a player cringe. But I believe every reject rare has a place, and even can be ridiculously powerful. I think the decks I've made with these cards are really unique and innovative, successfully elegant, and above all, fun to use.
Yes, I also scour the Gatherer while making a deck, usually searching through thousands of cards and pondering every decision. Creating a deck is the process that makes Magic the most interesting to me, and it matters the most. I spend quite some time developing my ideas.
However, playtesting/optimizing to metagames, I think that's more for a competitive setting, like Legacy. I find it hard to "optimize" a deck to a meta, and I don't think casual should. I think casual should be prepared with general answers instead of specific answers to certain cards/decks. Playtesting is difficult, as there are too many decks to face in casual (I myself with well over 50 decks), and having to remove a card you bought already (thus wasting money) is hard for me to do. Which is why most of my decks are theoretically created and posted here for critique before I buy them.
23 lands was specifically to easily reach 5 mana, hopefully dropping a land every turn. The idea was at 5 mana, I can
Browbeat + Fork or Reverberate
Devastating Summons + Double Fork/Reverberate. It's not so much that it's a game winning plan, but more of a fun, interesting plan. I don't really care if I lose more than win with this deck - (or with any of my decks, for that matter), as long as I win a couple, and in the way that I intend to win.
Yeah, total Johnny here. Sue me
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus