Straight up, even if splashing were viable, I love monored Burn way too much to pollute it with other colors. I wish Flame Rift was stronger but now that the creaturebase has upgraded from 4 Guide and 4 Lavamancer there's no real reason to run it. Last time I saw it was in the SCG Highlight video from when Patrick Sullivan was still on the scene.
Played a small, nine man tournament yesterday placing third with a bye. Not much to report about it, but I ended up with a question regarding the Merfolk match up; which was my loss. How is this match up approached? With their counters and Aether Vial, I imagine this race is in their favor. Besides artifact hate and Pithing Needle, what do you do against them? I ended up bringing in two Firecraft, Searing Blaze, four Smash. I probably should have brought in Pithing Needle, but I figured it was a race. I probably had a couple of mistakes as well, one of them being trying to Smash his untapped Vial on one and one Cursecatcher in play already.
My list for this tournament. I haven't been here in awhile, but I knew of two Miracles players, some BUG colored gents, and the rest was generally unknown to me.
Efficient removal is the name of the game. Back in the day we ran Flamebreak, but now we have Searing Blooze. Blaze is great, but adding Blood is a good idea if you expect to face creature swarms often (i.e. run both). Unless you really need 5 Shatter effects, some of those are potential cuts for Blood.
Those Shatter effects were needed. I ran into other players I've played before and one is a D&T player with the other being a MUD player. I was also expecting Eldrazi players, but none were present. I overheard someone say there was a Reanimator player, so I added the graveyard hate last minute. That player ended up playing one of the BUG colored decks.
Any combat tricks I could do? Anything I should be aware of in their combat tricks? How do they board?
I generally hold my Smash until I'm ready to kill them or for any equipment. And the same goes as always, wait for them to equip and then wait for them to attack, then blow it up. We're the control deck in the matchup so we usually want to leverage our better cards (Searing Blooze) and position ourselves to win through permission. Typically that looks like putting them to thirteen-ish through lava spikes and incidental damage, then holding up with bolts/chains/fireblasts for lethal. I would not bring in pithing needle pretty much ever. We don't typically care about them flashing things in, or rather, we don't have the luxury of caring IMO. We can't be spending a card that doesn't do damage on their card that doesn't do damage.
I have three Grim Lavamancers post board in my configuration which ends up pulling a huge amount of weight in this matchup so my lines are a bit different.
Eidolon is the reason Burn is such a strong deck. It doesn't deserve to be in the board. I've played Burn before Eidolon, and after, and it's a force to be reckoned with. When it lands, it's always two damage one way. Not much, but every point counts and it's a threat that needs to be answered or they will lose the game.
I've played Grim before and I still keep him among my collection of seventy-five card possibilities, but I don't have a use for him right now. He's a slow card. I found that ninety percent of the time, D&T names him with Revoker and they've done this to me blindly and often. So, now I just take it out and Revoker is just a beater and no real detriment to me. I am trying to find a time where I would need him, but outside of Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, I can't see where he is in the deck anymore.
I find that I want to be in the twenty to twenty-one land count region. At nineteen, I found myself needing mana: soft counters, needing to explode for the kill after a hate piece is removed, needing to cast a three mana spell and then some in one turn. Sure, a top deck land can spell doom, but that's apart of the deck. You also might have screwed up your play somewhere and cost yourself the game and didn't realize it. The deck is very tightly packed, I can see that, but going down in land count isn't the answer.
I don't like cards that don't deal damage to opponents as well. I don't like my spells to be countered. If I were to run a burn wipe, it would be Volcanic Fallout. In the land of free counters and high valued games, Volcanic is giving you what you need.
Exquisite Firecraft is missing from your deck.
I like Flame Rift dealing four. I don't like Flame Rift dealing four only on our turn. All of the decks in Legacy are aggressive decks or can turn aggressive fast. Our life total can matter if you're not careful.
it's an awesome turn 2 drop if on turn 1 we played a Goblin Guide or a Monastery Swiftspear, but mediocre if the first turn was used for a burn spell
it's an awesome turn 2 drop if we are on the play, not so much on the draw
it can slow down the plan if seen in multiples
it needs at least 20 (or 21?) lands to be run properly, so we have to reduce the burn count by 1 card (or 2?)
I've seen that the typical creature package is 4 Guide, 4 Spear, 4 Eidolon and 2 Lavamancer, but I discourage to run more than 12 creatures, because creatures are the weakest part of the plan
Without him, we can keep a 1-land opening hand
Without him, I can play 3 Flame Rift and 3 Price of Progress, because Price sometimes is just bad, while Flame is always 4 damages
Depending on the matchup, I'll switch him with Lavamancer of Swiftspear, taking the risk on the land count
Tell me if I'm wrong, if you have different results, or if you agree with me.
I would be very happy to free 4 slots on the sideboards for more hate cards, if you convince me.
PS: is Volcanic Fallout really worth? Can I swap it for Electrickery, which is one sided, costs 1 less so it can hit earlier and serves to the same purpose in D&T and Elves matchups?
Hello =) Welcome!
I'm not trying to be overly contrary, but I disagree with literally everything you said:
Flame Rift does not compare to Price of Progress, and I struggle (besides the mirror) to find a matchup where it doesn't do damage, even elves run Dryad Arbor and Gaea's Cradle.
Eidolon is pretty good on T2 most of the time, even without a one-drop creature. If you don't have a one drop, and eidolon isn't spectacular, you probably should have chosen to mulligan.
Eidolon is good on the play and on the draw.
Generally we're okay with slowing down the game because we have more inevitability than most decks (i.e. our draws kill people while their draws sometimes don't)
If you're trading 4 eidolon for 4 other 2 drops your land count should be the same regardless.
I've run 13 creatures pretty much exclusively, 4 guide, 4 swifty, 4 eidolon, 1 grim. There's nothing sacred about it, and creatures are sometimes the best part of the plan. I will almost 100% mulligan hands that don't have at least 1 one-drop. They are almost never "the weakest part of the plan"
Keep one-landers all day long. Depends on the hand. And again, if you're just saturating your deck with more two drops, whether it's eidolon or flame rift or price the hand still functions similarly.
Flame Rift has it's own risks associated with it, i.e. aggressive decks killing you faster. Generally, I think price has less downside and more upside, which is why people play it over flame rift.
I don't like sideboarding out swifty, the matchups where you're getting outclassed on the ground you should take out guides. And generally I hate sideboarding in two drops for one drops. It's difficult to support fuel for more than one lavamancer which means you're playing more Mons's Goblin Raiders.
And finally, if you want to play a sweeper, you should be playing Pyroclasm. You're generally not looking to bring in sweepers against decks where they'll have permission, and the decks where you want sweepers having it come down a turn earlier is very important (i.e. Elves).
Between 1 or 2 Grim Lavamancer, does it ultimately come down to a meta call? There's not many "unfair" decks in my meta (e.g. Reanimator, Show and Tell) but there are at least two (maybe three?) Manaless Dredge decks, some Junk midrange deck, and a Merfolk deck. Even when I had this deck in Modern I ultimately ended up running two Lavamancers because it felt right. I've seen some people run 0 copies in the 75. I'm interested to see the arguments for and against it.
Volcanic Fallout was more of a thing back when Merfolk was a more common threat. You could Fallout in response to their second Lord to wipe their board. Nowadays, most Burn decks can't find room for sweepers, but if you were looking for one I'd consider Pyroclasm for the low cost and Flamebreak for the 3-to-the-dome benefit (if you're willing to pay 3 anyway).
P.S. why do they use text-less cards in the Javascript popup card previews? How unhelpful.
It's totally a meta call. If there are a bunch of infect, dnt, aggro, more Grims are really good. I go up to three post-board since they are super versatile and can fill gaps in sideboarding. I keep one main just as something that I can look for in game 1 with tops.
Some artifacts added to the sideboard, and Pyroclasm instead of Fallout.
Pros Pyroclasm: where needed, no one is going to counter it, and it hits one turn earlier
Cons Pyroclasm: it doesn't hit the opponent, but in the end Fallout costs too much
Final question: suggestions on the Vortex total amount in the 75?
It looks great dude, two vortex is the perfect amount. They're good against a lot of stuff and bad against a lot of stuff so three always seemed like too many and one isn't enough.
Yeah if you find yourself getting beat up by miracles you can run Exquisite Firecraft, I could see it replacing the 3 Red Elemental Blasts for 3 Firecraft.
tomorrow at my local shop in preparation for Eternal Weekend this weekend...odds are I'll go back to a more traditional build with 4 swiftspears, but who knows.
Firecraft over Vortex maindeck is an interesting choice: thoughts? Ashen Rider is probably for S&T, but having it in hand at the right time might take some luck.
Ashen Rider is great versus some things, particularly S&T, but it being so niche has caused me to largely abandon it. I'd rather have more flexible answers.
Likewise, I prefer keeping Vortex MD over Firecraft, because Vortex usually will do as much or more damage, can close out a lot of games better than Firecraft, and in some cases can suppress extremely annoying lifegain effects. That said, I can imagine metas where I'd flip them.
Its a meta call, there were times when I ran fire craft main deck, they are amazing against batterskull, killing the token usually gives me enough time to end the game. But metas change, and stoneforge isn't that big around here any more. I've seen many more decks around with show and tell, so I would main deck vortex for that.
I would rather run vortex over rider, vortex you can hard cast when necessary, rider just requires too many things to go right. But to each their own.
FetchLand, speaking to your point about Monastery Swiftspear I included that one in my list. I don't think Swiftspear is a bad call at all. You can really pull some tremendous combos with her I think. I have a new spin on burn I am just finishing assembling, I would like to know all of your thoughts and help identify some of the holes.
Recipes include:
-Use fling with any big target, including Phyrexian Dreadnought or in response to ETB trigger (12 dmg for 3 R) or Vexing Devil in the same capacity (8 total dmg).
-Use torpor orb in conjunction with Phyrexian Dreadnought, and to a lesser extent Vexing Devil.
It looks like this deck has several fun combo possibilities to allow for very quick ways to end the opponent. All creatures except for Goblin Guide benefit from Fling, most of the burn doubles as removal, and there are are many different paths to 20 in just a few turns.
Burn is fun - Hate to tell you buddy, but you aren't playing burn. Sure you're running all the bolts, but that doesn't make it a burn deck. Fling interactions being at least three mana and two cards can make some explosive plays, but it also makes you extremely weak to counter magic, and discard. The hall mark of burn is to side step the impact of these interactions as much as possible, sure they can one for one us, but we're still on the road to victory with every spell we resolve. The combos you've included in your list are pretty powerful indeed, but they need all the pieces to work, a dreadnought with out orb or fling can be very awkward, same goes for fling, while you're short a creature, or have a hand full of swift spear, and guides. You don't have access to cantrips so the chances of you lining up these plays are minimal. If you're dead set on running this list, I would suggest you do a blue splash, and play something more like R/U Prowess.
Burn is powerful because each card we play is independently powerful, and do not rely on any other cards to opperate at full potential(excluding swiftspear, which effectively adds one damage to each spell we cast against an empty board), we just resolve seven spells and call it a day, in this way its akin to combo because we can be uninteractive, but once you put pressure on your self to sculpt a certain hand you're better off playing an actual combo deck.
Have fun with the list bro, looks like fun in the right meta. Heck I would even suggest go down one guide, up one swift spear, and cut Rift bolt for lotus petal, go big or go home!
Also I'm pretty sure Vexing Devil and fling doesn't work the way you think it does, it comes into play, the trigger goes on the stack, you can hold priority and cast fling and get four damage, or they can take four, and you'll sac the devil on resolution. You can not interrupt the resolution of an ability.
I wouldn't play Rift even if it were instant. The addition of Eidolon made it way too risky.
I played a Burn mirror and we both had 4 each of Eidolon and Pillar in our decks. A 3rd Pillar effect hit the table, basically cutting us off most of our decks. He was at 7 and I was at 15, but the only spells I had at that time were Flame Rift and Fireblast. I knew that I could take him down at a huge personal cost, but that if I Fireblasted too he could potentially respond w/more Fireblasts and kill me. So I Flame Rifted to knock him to 3 and I took 10 to go to 5. We both sat there playing Draw Go for about 30 cards before he said screw it and Fireblasted me to 1, then tried to do it again for the kill. I Fireblasted him in response for the win.
Flame Rift is a pet card for me in this deck, kind of like Kaervek's Spite in Pox.
To echo the others, that Dreadnought build is really interesting, but it's not really Burn. It loses too much of Burn's resilience and redundancy to a combo that, while powerful, doesn't really guarantee results.
Still interesting, and I think there are metas where I'd be willing to try and play it.
Some artifacts added to the sideboard, and Pyroclasm instead of Fallout.
Pros Pyroclasm: where needed, no one is going to counter it, and it hits one turn earlier
Cons Pyroclasm: it doesn't hit the opponent, but in the end Fallout costs too much
Final question: suggestions on the Vortex total amount in the 75?
With my actual build I am playing 2 Vortex, you want to see that card, but not in multiple draws and not necessarily on turn 1...
About Fallout, I used to have in sideboard. IMO the additional cost of 1 is fairly covered by avoiding counters against merfolks and other tricky blu mages (citation!)
My list for this tournament. I haven't been here in awhile, but I knew of two Miracles players, some BUG colored gents, and the rest was generally unknown to me.
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
3 Searing Blaze
4 Price of Progress
4 Rift Bolt
2 Exquisite Firecraft
3 Fireblast
8 Mountain
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
1 Shattering Spree
2 Vexing Shusher
1 Searing Blaze
4 Smash to Smithereens
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Exquisite Firecraft
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Any combat tricks I could do? Anything I should be aware of in their combat tricks? How do they board?
I have three Grim Lavamancers post board in my configuration which ends up pulling a huge amount of weight in this matchup so my lines are a bit different.
And apparently I've changed my name: Ugh
Also, the meta is more aggressive now. Rift is a liability in matchups like Eldrazi, where they will try to race you.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
I've played Grim before and I still keep him among my collection of seventy-five card possibilities, but I don't have a use for him right now. He's a slow card. I found that ninety percent of the time, D&T names him with Revoker and they've done this to me blindly and often. So, now I just take it out and Revoker is just a beater and no real detriment to me. I am trying to find a time where I would need him, but outside of Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, I can't see where he is in the deck anymore.
I find that I want to be in the twenty to twenty-one land count region. At nineteen, I found myself needing mana: soft counters, needing to explode for the kill after a hate piece is removed, needing to cast a three mana spell and then some in one turn. Sure, a top deck land can spell doom, but that's apart of the deck. You also might have screwed up your play somewhere and cost yourself the game and didn't realize it. The deck is very tightly packed, I can see that, but going down in land count isn't the answer.
I don't like cards that don't deal damage to opponents as well. I don't like my spells to be countered. If I were to run a burn wipe, it would be Volcanic Fallout. In the land of free counters and high valued games, Volcanic is giving you what you need.
Exquisite Firecraft is missing from your deck.
I like Flame Rift dealing four. I don't like Flame Rift dealing four only on our turn. All of the decks in Legacy are aggressive decks or can turn aggressive fast. Our life total can matter if you're not careful.
Hello =) Welcome!
I'm not trying to be overly contrary, but I disagree with literally everything you said:
Flame Rift does not compare to Price of Progress, and I struggle (besides the mirror) to find a matchup where it doesn't do damage, even elves run Dryad Arbor and Gaea's Cradle.
Eidolon is pretty good on T2 most of the time, even without a one-drop creature. If you don't have a one drop, and eidolon isn't spectacular, you probably should have chosen to mulligan.
Eidolon is good on the play and on the draw.
Generally we're okay with slowing down the game because we have more inevitability than most decks (i.e. our draws kill people while their draws sometimes don't)
If you're trading 4 eidolon for 4 other 2 drops your land count should be the same regardless.
I've run 13 creatures pretty much exclusively, 4 guide, 4 swifty, 4 eidolon, 1 grim. There's nothing sacred about it, and creatures are sometimes the best part of the plan. I will almost 100% mulligan hands that don't have at least 1 one-drop. They are almost never "the weakest part of the plan"
Keep one-landers all day long. Depends on the hand. And again, if you're just saturating your deck with more two drops, whether it's eidolon or flame rift or price the hand still functions similarly.
Flame Rift has it's own risks associated with it, i.e. aggressive decks killing you faster. Generally, I think price has less downside and more upside, which is why people play it over flame rift.
I don't like sideboarding out swifty, the matchups where you're getting outclassed on the ground you should take out guides. And generally I hate sideboarding in two drops for one drops. It's difficult to support fuel for more than one lavamancer which means you're playing more Mons's Goblin Raiders.
And finally, if you want to play a sweeper, you should be playing Pyroclasm. You're generally not looking to bring in sweepers against decks where they'll have permission, and the decks where you want sweepers having it come down a turn earlier is very important (i.e. Elves).
And apparently I've changed my name: Ugh
P.S. why do they use text-less cards in the Javascript popup card previews? How unhelpful.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
And apparently I've changed my name: Ugh
It looks great dude, two vortex is the perfect amount. They're good against a lot of stuff and bad against a lot of stuff so three always seemed like too many and one isn't enough.
Yeah if you find yourself getting beat up by miracles you can run Exquisite Firecraft, I could see it replacing the 3 Red Elemental Blasts for 3 Firecraft.
And apparently I've changed my name: Ugh
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=107589#content_decks_legacy-tab
tomorrow at my local shop in preparation for Eternal Weekend this weekend...odds are I'll go back to a more traditional build with 4 swiftspears, but who knows.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Likewise, I prefer keeping Vortex MD over Firecraft, because Vortex usually will do as much or more damage, can close out a lot of games better than Firecraft, and in some cases can suppress extremely annoying lifegain effects. That said, I can imagine metas where I'd flip them.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
I would rather run vortex over rider, vortex you can hard cast when necessary, rider just requires too many things to go right. But to each their own.
RIP Karn EDH
and this list in it: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/visual
I never really considered cutting Swiftspear an option as the card can be SO good. Anyone else think this is a bad call?
4x Vexing Devil
4x Goblin Guide
3x Monastery Swiftspear
3x Phyrexian Dreadnought
Burn -23
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Rift Bolt
4x Fireblast
4x Chain Lightning
4x Fling
3x Lava Spike
3x Torpor Orb
Land -20
2x Barbarian Ring
18x Mountain
2x Sulfuric Vortex
3x Price of Progress
3x Smash to Smithereens
2x Pithing Needle
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Tormod's Crypt
Recipes include:
-Use fling with any big target, including Phyrexian Dreadnought or in response to ETB trigger (12 dmg for 3 R) or Vexing Devil in the same capacity (8 total dmg).
-Use torpor orb in conjunction with Phyrexian Dreadnought, and to a lesser extent Vexing Devil.
It looks like this deck has several fun combo possibilities to allow for very quick ways to end the opponent. All creatures except for Goblin Guide benefit from Fling, most of the burn doubles as removal, and there are are many different paths to 20 in just a few turns.
Burn is powerful because each card we play is independently powerful, and do not rely on any other cards to opperate at full potential(excluding swiftspear, which effectively adds one damage to each spell we cast against an empty board), we just resolve seven spells and call it a day, in this way its akin to combo because we can be uninteractive, but once you put pressure on your self to sculpt a certain hand you're better off playing an actual combo deck.
Have fun with the list bro, looks like fun in the right meta. Heck I would even suggest go down one guide, up one swift spear, and cut Rift bolt for lotus petal, go big or go home!
RIP Karn EDH
RIP Karn EDH
I played a Burn mirror and we both had 4 each of Eidolon and Pillar in our decks. A 3rd Pillar effect hit the table, basically cutting us off most of our decks. He was at 7 and I was at 15, but the only spells I had at that time were Flame Rift and Fireblast. I knew that I could take him down at a huge personal cost, but that if I Fireblasted too he could potentially respond w/more Fireblasts and kill me. So I Flame Rifted to knock him to 3 and I took 10 to go to 5. We both sat there playing Draw Go for about 30 cards before he said screw it and Fireblasted me to 1, then tried to do it again for the kill. I Fireblasted him in response for the win.
Flame Rift is a pet card for me in this deck, kind of like Kaervek's Spite in Pox.
Congrats, you were winning already.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Still interesting, and I think there are metas where I'd be willing to try and play it.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
With my actual build I am playing 2 Vortex, you want to see that card, but not in multiple draws and not necessarily on turn 1...
About Fallout, I used to have in sideboard. IMO the additional cost of 1 is fairly covered by avoiding counters against merfolks and other tricky blu mages (citation!)
// Lands
20 [UNH] Mountain
// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Goblin Guide
4 [KTK] Monastery Swiftspear
// Spells
4 [JOU] Eidolon of the Great Revel
3 [VI] Fireblast
3 [EX] Price of Progress
4 [TSP] Rift Bolt
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
4 [CHK] Lava Spike
4 [M11] Lightning Bolt
2 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex
4 [B] Black Vise
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [A] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 [DS] Dragon's Claw
SB: 3 [SHM] Smash to Smithereens
SB: 2 [SHM] Vexing Shusher
SB: 2 [MMA] Blood Moon
SB: 2 [CMD] Chaos Warp
H/W - Website