More than willing to go tinfoil hat along with you, especially as it goes for a new set.
I'm a little worried about the new boros human though that makes your other guys immune to damage spells. Who the **** at WOTC thought that was a good idea? My only hope is it overrides Auriok Champion as a sideboard pick.
I'm pretty certain that that's precisely what the Manamorphose hype was. I'm sure they do it with new cards, too.
I assume you're talking about Tajic, Legion's Edge? I'm not sure they'd put that in their sideboards over things like Sin Collector for the Burn matchup. It wouldn't save them from Path or any destruction based removal from other decks, and only really targets Burn and anyone who plays damage board wipes. I'm not sure it's broad enough. Granting Hexproof or indestructible probably would be, though.
1. It's a rule breaker AND resource enabler with Experimental Frenzy. With Experimental Frenzy in play you can't cast cards in your hand, but you can discard to play a Risk Factor in your graveyard. This might be important if, for instance, you are jammed up with consecutive lands on top of your deck. Often you'll be destroying your opponent with an Experimental Frenzy in play, but if you have, say, three consecutive lands? That will be much worse than just drawing three lands. Jump-starting Risk Factor can help clear all that up.
2. The "bad" side of Risk Factor is essentially a "deal 4" … Those cards are awesome as long as they have friends. If your deck is full of direct damage - especially high value direct damage - consistently getting to deal 4 with one card (or in this case, 8 with one card, over two casts) is like drawing an extra card already.
1. Risk Factor, on the other hand, is ideal in a deck like Burn where your whole goal is to cast Lava Spike seven times and so your entire deck is Lava Spikes in trench coats. Once you know your punisher card is going to be a win in your deck, you've got to make sure it's a loss for the opponent. Creating a lose/lose decision for the opponent is almost more important for punisher cards than being a win/win for you.
2. To make a card good, you must force your opponent to make a bad choice. For a punisher card to be good, all the opponent's possible choices must be bad. Yet Risk Factor is perfect for a deck like Burn where almost every decision is based on dealing damage to the opponent or living longer to take more draw steps. Burn gets these simple decisions because all cards but lands work toward those two goals.
Edit : I keep continuing to test this card. Every times I meet the major problem of Burn at flooding lands or drawing a creature when I need a Bolt to finish the game, especially in tournaments where I must play a lot of matches. This card is what I need, more than Shard volley thanks to Jump-start ability.. Risk factor is incredible against control since it is instant, then how much difficult it is for them to deal with that. Do they waste a counterspell, as we can flashback it ? Then what choice ? If I draw 3, I may have more than 4 damages... and can re-cast Risk factor !
I replaced Skullcrack in my main list by this card, so it is not worst against aggro decks. In fact, it is better since both cards can not target creatures but this one assure me to not run out of gaz firstly, then it deals 4 damages, that is like Boros charm so it opens more windows to get lethal damages, your opponent will not be safe at 7 or 8 life !
We will need to read the metagame because if there will be a tons of Abzan Rhino, Marty proc, Knight of autumn decks, Bogles, etc, then Skullcrack will remain on top, even though I think that it might not be enough. In any other scenario, I believe in Risk factor
Being an instant and can fire off twice makes it better than Browbeat. However, it is a 3 cmc card, and 3 mana is sometimes too hard when we're only a 20 land deck. Risk Factor looks promising, but needs to be tested a lot first.
If they choose to take four the nacatl would have been better. That indicates they have no removal and the cat would be better. Also devils can never be a blocker on games you have to grind out with lavamancer. In most cases vexing devil is worse unless they are exactly at four and don't have or can't topdeck a card. You lose any ability at all to be the control. This means you will have to be much more aggressive with mulligans.
I'm having a hard time following your logic here. Just because they choose to take four, doesn't mean cat would instantly be better. Maybe they want to save that removal for other things they can't kill via choice. Maybe cat can get through, but only once, which is 3 damage vs 4 damage. Likewise, it's true that we don't want Devil to serve as a blocker, but if an opponent chooses to take 4 to prevent that from happening, it's equivalent to two free turns of Lavamancer grinding. It's like saying, "don't buy a television right now, what if you want a television later, but you had already spent the money?".
Dude this game has existed for twenty five years and sligh was one of the first archetypes created for competition. I'm not against this card existing. If it helps burn I am happy. However, I am not going to test it because it doesn't pass any sort of eye test.
Dude this game has existed for twenty five years and sligh was one of the first archetypes created for competition. I'm not against this card existing. If it helps burn I am happy. However, I am not going to test it because it doesn't pass any sort of eye test.
I share this sentiment, especially the last part. Testing is a good thing and all, but it's absurd to me to act as if someone is fundamentally misguided and wrong for "theory-crafting" and rejecting a card after making well-reasoned and logical assessments of that card. Experiments are great. I like experiments. But sometimes an experiment isn't necessary because the theory tells you something important.
Dude this game has existed for twenty five years and sligh was one of the first archetypes created for competition. I'm not against this card existing. If it helps burn I am happy. However, I am not going to test it because it doesn't pass any sort of eye test.
I share this sentiment, especially the last part. Testing is a good thing and all, but it's absurd to me to act as if someone is fundamentally misguided and wrong for "theory-crafting" and rejecting a card after making well-reasoned and logical assessments of that card. Experiments are great. I like experiments. But sometimes an experiment isn't necessary because the theory tells you something important.
I am still testing the card myself but burn has went through many phases in modern alone. To not test a card is one’s choice but again I put forth someone at some point thought Treasure Cruise was good enough at 3 cmc on average and it was Sorcery speed not Instant speed. In a soon enough meta with Assassin’s Trophy being ubiquitous, it would not be unheard of for us to have 3 mana quite often. Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?
Swapping out the two Exquisite Firecraft in my sideboard for two Risk Factor is definitely something I’m willing to try. They serve similar purposes, but I think Risk Factor may be more generally useful against Blood Moon decks when I side out my white and go full mono-red (if you haven’t done this against Ponza or Mardu Pyromancer, I really recommend trying it. It works surprisingly well). I’ve never been a huge fan of the sorcery speed on Exquisite Firecraft either, so another instant is welcome.
I’m not sure I’d run them main board over Skullcrack but I could see it maybe being possible if your local meta has less main deck life gain.
For all of you hyped up on Risk Factor, just realize that every time you say "in situation X, side Y of RF would be really good!", what we sceptics read is "in situation X, you're not going to get side Y".
4 dmg for 3 mana is not good or even fine. It's super clunky and terrible in multiples and dead against fast archetypes so I have no idea how you can even consider this a main deck card.
If all this card is (maybe) good against is control, you have to make a convincing case for it to be better than exquisite firecraft which will do exactly what you want every time.
For all of you hyped up on Risk Factor, just realize that every time you say "in situation X, side Y of RF would be really good!", what we sceptics read is "in situation X, you're not going to get side Y".
4 dmg for 3 mana is not good or even fine. It's super clunky and terrible in multiples and dead against fast archetypes so I have no idea how you can even consider this a main deck card.
If all this card is (maybe) good against is control, you have to make a convincing case for it to be better than exquisite firecraft which will do exactly what you want every time.
What skeptics like yourself are missing is trying to be realistic with the card. Burn isn’t playing SSG so we can’t play it turn 1 or likely even is the GRN meta not on turn 2 either. So then it becomes well do you play this card over other cards in your hand which that answer more than likely should be no to be as mana efficient as possible. That then leaves you with it being your last card in hand which is why the scenario is being presented as such. At this point it shouldn’t be hard to point out that any of the 3 outcomes are great for us (8 damage, 4 damage and 3 cards, or 6 cards).
I am still testing the card myself but burn has went through many phases in modern alone. To not test a card is one’s choice but again I put forth someone at some point thought Treasure Cruise was good enough at 3 cmc on average and it was Sorcery speed not Instant speed. In a soon enough meta with Assassin’s Trophy being ubiquitous, it would not be unheard of for us to have 3 mana quite often. Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?
As I've said before, I never played with Treasure Cruise, but I suspect that you either cast it for 1 and it got you to win the game because Sorcery Ancestral Recall is really good or you cast it at 3 or 4 and it was just a spell you happened to cast right before you lost the game. Maybe TC had an average CMC of 3, but it didn't really shine until when you were casting it for 1. You can never cast Risk Factor for 1. Burn wouldn't have played "2U: Draw 3 cards", and that card wouldn't be banned today. Burn played TC because it was "U: Draw 3 cards" a lot of the time.
I also don't think it's reasonable to compare Risk Factor to Treasure Cruise. I think your "3CMC average" statement is likely way too high and that the most likely cost was 1 or 2. TC is broken. Risk Factor is not.
"Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?" What did you cut to add Risk Factor? If it was a burn spell, why spend 3 mana and your turn to either deal 4 or draw 3 when you could have just played a burn spell at a better rate? Maybe you could have even played that burn spell and another in your hand this turn, but instead you're tapped out with 4 cards in hand and... you lost.
I am still testing the card myself but burn has went through many phases in modern alone. To not test a card is one’s choice but again I put forth someone at some point thought Treasure Cruise was good enough at 3 cmc on average and it was Sorcery speed not Instant speed. In a soon enough meta with Assassin’s Trophy being ubiquitous, it would not be unheard of for us to have 3 mana quite often. Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?
As I've said before, I never played with Treasure Cruise, but I suspect that you either cast it for 1 and it got you to win the game because Sorcery Ancestral Recall is really good or you cast it at 3 or 4 and it was just a spell you happened to cast right before you lost the game. Maybe TC had an average CMC of 3, but it didn't really shine until when you were casting it for 1. You can never cast Risk Factor for 1. Burn wouldn't have played "2U: Draw 3 cards", and that card wouldn't be banned today. Burn played TC because it was "U: Draw 3 cards" a lot of the time.
I also don't think it's reasonable to compare Risk Factor to Treasure Cruise. I think your "3CMC average" statement is likely way too high and that the most likely cost was 1 or 2. TC is broken. Risk Factor is not.
"Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?" What did you cut to add Risk Factor? If it was a burn spell, why spend 3 mana and your turn to either deal 4 or draw 3 when you could have just played a burn spell at a better rate? Maybe you could have even played that burn spell and another in your hand this turn, but instead you're tapped out with 4 cards in hand and... you lost.
If you didn’t play during the time stop trying to make comments that aren’t true. I played TC when it was legal and also ran Probe to also assist with getting the cost of delve down and potentially draw into it or other burn spells. On average there was 1-2 fetches and 3-4 spells in the yard. If I was to give it an actual average it was close to 2.5 mana that is why I said between 2-3 mana originally. The card had very high upside thus it was played despite the potential of not being able to get a blue source or having the blue source removed by something like ghost quarter or fulminator mage. Lavamancer wasn’t played because of the nonbo as well.
You still don’t understand the value on this card which I have stated multiple times now. If you have played burn long enough you should know by now that burn’s main problems past turn 3 is top decking lands or creatures as we don’t need more than 3 lands and our creatures get out classed easily in Modern. This card allows us to dodge bad top decks by pitching them to recast the card. It is 2 spells on 1 card.
As for your completely bogus scenario of holding 4 cards and being tapped out is absolutely ridiculous. I stated in my last post it more times than not be the last card in hand due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible so no you wouldn’t play this card over 4 other spells in your hand. Also there would not be a point in which you are tapped out casting it because it has instant speed.
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
I'll agree that outlandish remarks don't help, which is why I'm not comparing this card to treasure cruise and find it strange that you are. It should be obvious why they are not remotely comparable.
due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible
The other day, I said that one should play Burn in a manner that minimizes the likelihood that you run out of gas. You said that's "laughable". Now you state that the nature of Burn is to be a efficient as possible. So are you making laughable statements now or are you agreeing with me? Both statements are expressing the same idea.
Giving your opponent a choice isn't efficient. Literally it is the exact opposite. If dealing four is just as good as drawing the cards, I'd rather just play a direct damage spell and avoid giving them the choice.
Hey I am fine with either result. Either the card isn't good and I get some street cred or the card is good and my modern deck gets better as a result.
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
I'll agree that outlandish remarks don't help, which is why I'm not comparing this card to treasure cruise and find it strange that you are. It should be obvious why they are not remotely comparable.
due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible
The other day, I said that one should play Burn in a manner that minimizes the likelihood that you run out of gas. You said that's "laughable". Now you state that the nature of Burn is to be a efficient as possible. So are you making laughable statements now or are you agreeing with me? Both statements are expressing the same idea.
I did call it laughable you are correct because no matter how efficient you play you can still end up drawing bad cards ie multiple lands or creatures past turn 3. That should be obvious and I don’t understand why you are still fighting something that should be common knowledge for an experienced burn player.
Giving your opponent a choice isn't efficient. Literally it is the exact opposite. If dealing four is just as good as drawing the cards, I'd rather just play a direct damage spell and avoid giving them the choice.
Hey I am fine with either result. Either the card isn't good and I get some street cred or the card is good and my modern deck gets better as a result.
Again you are using the wrong word here. Giving your opponent a choice doesn’t necessarily have to do with efficiency, but does effect consistency.
Your last statement is great and I respond with then why not test it to help put the nail in the coffin on which it is. According to you it is a win win because you gain cred or get a better deck out of the deal so why not test to bring something to the table other than theory crafting and provide at least your own anecdotal evidence.
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
I'll agree that outlandish remarks don't help, which is why I'm not comparing this card to treasure cruise and find it strange that you are. It should be obvious why they are not remotely comparable.
due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible
The other day, I said that one should play Burn in a manner that minimizes the likelihood that you run out of gas. You said that's "laughable". Now you state that the nature of Burn is to be a efficient as possible. So are you making laughable statements now or are you agreeing with me? Both statements are expressing the same idea.
I did call it laughable you are correct because no matter how efficient you play you can still end up drawing bad cards ie multiple lands or creatures past turn 3. That should be obvious and I don’t understand why you are still fighting something that should be common knowledge for an experienced burn player.
Unavoidable random outcomes are unavoidable random outcomes. You minimize the probability of running out of Burn spells by not wasting the ones you draw. Sometimes you can let a creature live instead of bolting it, by playing to your outs and bolting their face and accepting that you need 2 good draws to win before their clock wins. If you bolt the creature, you end up needing 3 good draws to win. That's called tight play, and you're calling it "laughable". That is downright absurd. I don't understand how an experienced Burn player would call tight play "laughable".
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
I'll agree that outlandish remarks don't help, which is why I'm not comparing this card to treasure cruise and find it strange that you are. It should be obvious why they are not remotely comparable.
due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible
The other day, I said that one should play Burn in a manner that minimizes the likelihood that you run out of gas. You said that's "laughable". Now you state that the nature of Burn is to be a efficient as possible. So are you making laughable statements now or are you agreeing with me? Both statements are expressing the same idea.
I did call it laughable you are correct because no matter how efficient you play you can still end up drawing bad cards ie multiple lands or creatures past turn 3. That should be obvious and I don’t understand why you are still fighting something that should be common knowledge for an experienced burn player.
Unavoidable random outcomes are unavoidable random outcomes. You minimize the probability of running out of Burn spells by not wasting the ones you draw. Sometimes you can let a creature live instead of bolting it, by playing to your outs and bolting their face and accepting that you need 2 good draws to win before their clock wins. If you bolt the creature, you end up needing 3 good draws to win. That's called tight play, and you're calling it "laughable". That is downright absurd. I don't understand how an experienced Burn player would call tight play "laughable".
Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. Even if you play as “tight“ as you possibly can you still have to draw somewhat decent which has always been a downfall of the deck.
Let’s look at burn just as a concept for a moment. If you just go with a notion that each card represents 3 damage (I know that this is oversimplified, but this is what your opponent typically does) and we would like to have 2 lands in our opener that means we have 15 damage in our hand to start. That mean over the next 3 draws we need 2 more non lands at least for the 21 damage. So we are heavily reliant upon what we draw even with our ideal opening hand.
RF somewhat mitigates the bad draws by either changing it out for damage or more cards.
But hey I know you love doing math so just run the numbers yourself. What is the chance of drawing a creature or land past T3 with a stock list and let’s just say you had 2-3 creatures and 3 lands within the prior turns (I used those numbers as an average game)?
I'm not testing it because I've been playing the game for a long enough time to be able to evaluate a lot of cards. I get annoyed enough that I see searing blaze game one against Tron sometimes, but I accept that its such a house against humans. Here's the best way I can say it:
Does it improve any matchups in a significant way? No, because when I lose to midrange it tends to be very close. If they are taking four then winning on the counterattack, I was going to lose no matter what I drew. If they let me draw, it means I only need one burn spell to win. In that case, I'd rather have the redundancy of bolts anyways, especially because two and three land games are pretty common. "Oh but if they are at three and you draw swiftspear you lose." Yes, that's true. It's also a card game with variance. Sometimes you get the draw, sometimes you don't. You could cast this thing, draw three, and they are all lands. ***** happens.
I think a comparison to browbeat is fair. Let me point out that Risk factor is obviously better than browbeat for two reasons: It's an instant and it has Jump-start. The one less damage is a downside, but it's easy to overlook when you can potentially cast the spell twice. It's a potential 8 dmg spell and even more depending on what you draw if your opponent lets you draw, which he probably will considering the deck we want to play it in is burn.
However, "Potential" imply a lot of things going your way (AKA your opponent making bad choice) and Risk factor suffer the same problem browbeat does in this sense: if your opponent lets you draw the cards (which he probably will), we basically wasted a turn doing no damage or way less damage than we could have done. Don't forget that three mana is a lot to ask of burn. There are games where we don't even see the third land and assuming you'll have a fourth land out of your draw is not wise (Hell I'm stuck at one mana some games, but then again I'm at 18 lands :P). Not to mention you'll cast it during your turn if you want to drop a land for a potential burn spell, and that's assuming the burn spell(s) you draw are 1 CMC. We also have to assume that any card we discard for the jump-start has to be a land, for any other discard is a mistake.
We also assume that the max potential of the card is achieved when it's been casted twice, and that's TWO turn / SIX mana that is not spent on burning your opponent.
another thing: assuming a scenario where we have ten card drawn by turn 4, three are lands and six are 1-CMC, 3-DMG burn spells and one is risk factor. off course, all the burn spells have been casted. Opponnent is still at 2 life. Now I have to cast risk factor and it has to draw me both a land and another 1-CMC 3 dmg burn spell. if the burn spell(s) I draw are 2 CMC or I don't draw a land, I have to wait around doing nothing until turn 5 arrives, which is an additional turn my opponent could win. If Risk factor had been ANY other burn spell, this game would already be over.
There's a reason we didn't play, or stopped playing Browbeat in the first place: three mana for potentially no damage just to secure our next few turns is not something we want in burn when in most scenario where Browbeat can be cast, just another burn spell can do the trick and actually seal the game. seven is the magic number of burn spell you usually need to kill someone, and if one of those spell is replaced by a Browbeat or a Risk factor, we basically slow oursleves down by one turn. Also, I cannot imagine a scenario where I both cast and Jump-start Risk factor without being very behind in the game.
As much as I like the card, I'm siding with elconquistador1985 on this one.
I'm a little worried about the new boros human though that makes your other guys immune to damage spells. Who the **** at WOTC thought that was a good idea? My only hope is it overrides Auriok Champion as a sideboard pick.
I assume you're talking about Tajic, Legion's Edge? I'm not sure they'd put that in their sideboards over things like Sin Collector for the Burn matchup. It wouldn't save them from Path or any destruction based removal from other decks, and only really targets Burn and anyone who plays damage board wipes. I'm not sure it's broad enough. Granting Hexproof or indestructible probably would be, though.
Being an instant and can fire off twice makes it better than Browbeat. However, it is a 3 cmc card, and 3 mana is sometimes too hard when we're only a 20 land deck. Risk Factor looks promising, but needs to be tested a lot first.
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I'm having a hard time following your logic here. Just because they choose to take four, doesn't mean cat would instantly be better. Maybe they want to save that removal for other things they can't kill via choice. Maybe cat can get through, but only once, which is 3 damage vs 4 damage. Likewise, it's true that we don't want Devil to serve as a blocker, but if an opponent chooses to take 4 to prevent that from happening, it's equivalent to two free turns of Lavamancer grinding. It's like saying, "don't buy a television right now, what if you want a television later, but you had already spent the money?".
I share this sentiment, especially the last part. Testing is a good thing and all, but it's absurd to me to act as if someone is fundamentally misguided and wrong for "theory-crafting" and rejecting a card after making well-reasoned and logical assessments of that card. Experiments are great. I like experiments. But sometimes an experiment isn't necessary because the theory tells you something important.
I am still testing the card myself but burn has went through many phases in modern alone. To not test a card is one’s choice but again I put forth someone at some point thought Treasure Cruise was good enough at 3 cmc on average and it was Sorcery speed not Instant speed. In a soon enough meta with Assassin’s Trophy being ubiquitous, it would not be unheard of for us to have 3 mana quite often. Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?
I’m not sure I’d run them main board over Skullcrack but I could see it maybe being possible if your local meta has less main deck life gain.
4 dmg for 3 mana is not good or even fine. It's super clunky and terrible in multiples and dead against fast archetypes so I have no idea how you can even consider this a main deck card.
If all this card is (maybe) good against is control, you have to make a convincing case for it to be better than exquisite firecraft which will do exactly what you want every time.
What skeptics like yourself are missing is trying to be realistic with the card. Burn isn’t playing SSG so we can’t play it turn 1 or likely even is the GRN meta not on turn 2 either. So then it becomes well do you play this card over other cards in your hand which that answer more than likely should be no to be as mana efficient as possible. That then leaves you with it being your last card in hand which is why the scenario is being presented as such. At this point it shouldn’t be hard to point out that any of the 3 outcomes are great for us (8 damage, 4 damage and 3 cards, or 6 cards).
As I've said before, I never played with Treasure Cruise, but I suspect that you either cast it for 1 and it got you to win the game because Sorcery Ancestral Recall is really good or you cast it at 3 or 4 and it was just a spell you happened to cast right before you lost the game. Maybe TC had an average CMC of 3, but it didn't really shine until when you were casting it for 1. You can never cast Risk Factor for 1. Burn wouldn't have played "2U: Draw 3 cards", and that card wouldn't be banned today. Burn played TC because it was "U: Draw 3 cards" a lot of the time.
I also don't think it's reasonable to compare Risk Factor to Treasure Cruise. I think your "3CMC average" statement is likely way too high and that the most likely cost was 1 or 2. TC is broken. Risk Factor is not.
"Lands and Creatures are terrible past turn 3 typically so why not change out a land or creature for either 3 cards or 4 damage?" What did you cut to add Risk Factor? If it was a burn spell, why spend 3 mana and your turn to either deal 4 or draw 3 when you could have just played a burn spell at a better rate? Maybe you could have even played that burn spell and another in your hand this turn, but instead you're tapped out with 4 cards in hand and... you lost.
If you didn’t play during the time stop trying to make comments that aren’t true. I played TC when it was legal and also ran Probe to also assist with getting the cost of delve down and potentially draw into it or other burn spells. On average there was 1-2 fetches and 3-4 spells in the yard. If I was to give it an actual average it was close to 2.5 mana that is why I said between 2-3 mana originally. The card had very high upside thus it was played despite the potential of not being able to get a blue source or having the blue source removed by something like ghost quarter or fulminator mage. Lavamancer wasn’t played because of the nonbo as well.
You still don’t understand the value on this card which I have stated multiple times now. If you have played burn long enough you should know by now that burn’s main problems past turn 3 is top decking lands or creatures as we don’t need more than 3 lands and our creatures get out classed easily in Modern. This card allows us to dodge bad top decks by pitching them to recast the card. It is 2 spells on 1 card.
As for your completely bogus scenario of holding 4 cards and being tapped out is absolutely ridiculous. I stated in my last post it more times than not be the last card in hand due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible so no you wouldn’t play this card over 4 other spells in your hand. Also there would not be a point in which you are tapped out casting it because it has instant speed.
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
I'll agree that outlandish remarks don't help, which is why I'm not comparing this card to treasure cruise and find it strange that you are. It should be obvious why they are not remotely comparable.
The other day, I said that one should play Burn in a manner that minimizes the likelihood that you run out of gas. You said that's "laughable". Now you state that the nature of Burn is to be a efficient as possible. So are you making laughable statements now or are you agreeing with me? Both statements are expressing the same idea.
Hey I am fine with either result. Either the card isn't good and I get some street cred or the card is good and my modern deck gets better as a result.
I did call it laughable you are correct because no matter how efficient you play you can still end up drawing bad cards ie multiple lands or creatures past turn 3. That should be obvious and I don’t understand why you are still fighting something that should be common knowledge for an experienced burn player.
Again you are using the wrong word here. Giving your opponent a choice doesn’t necessarily have to do with efficiency, but does effect consistency.
Your last statement is great and I respond with then why not test it to help put the nail in the coffin on which it is. According to you it is a win win because you gain cred or get a better deck out of the deal so why not test to bring something to the table other than theory crafting and provide at least your own anecdotal evidence.
Unavoidable random outcomes are unavoidable random outcomes. You minimize the probability of running out of Burn spells by not wasting the ones you draw. Sometimes you can let a creature live instead of bolting it, by playing to your outs and bolting their face and accepting that you need 2 good draws to win before their clock wins. If you bolt the creature, you end up needing 3 good draws to win. That's called tight play, and you're calling it "laughable". That is downright absurd. I don't understand how an experienced Burn player would call tight play "laughable".
Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. Even if you play as “tight“ as you possibly can you still have to draw somewhat decent which has always been a downfall of the deck.
Let’s look at burn just as a concept for a moment. If you just go with a notion that each card represents 3 damage (I know that this is oversimplified, but this is what your opponent typically does) and we would like to have 2 lands in our opener that means we have 15 damage in our hand to start. That mean over the next 3 draws we need 2 more non lands at least for the 21 damage. So we are heavily reliant upon what we draw even with our ideal opening hand.
RF somewhat mitigates the bad draws by either changing it out for damage or more cards.
But hey I know you love doing math so just run the numbers yourself. What is the chance of drawing a creature or land past T3 with a stock list and let’s just say you had 2-3 creatures and 3 lands within the prior turns (I used those numbers as an average game)?
Does it improve any matchups in a significant way? No, because when I lose to midrange it tends to be very close. If they are taking four then winning on the counterattack, I was going to lose no matter what I drew. If they let me draw, it means I only need one burn spell to win. In that case, I'd rather have the redundancy of bolts anyways, especially because two and three land games are pretty common. "Oh but if they are at three and you draw swiftspear you lose." Yes, that's true. It's also a card game with variance. Sometimes you get the draw, sometimes you don't. You could cast this thing, draw three, and they are all lands. ***** happens.
I think a comparison to browbeat is fair. Let me point out that Risk factor is obviously better than browbeat for two reasons: It's an instant and it has Jump-start. The one less damage is a downside, but it's easy to overlook when you can potentially cast the spell twice. It's a potential 8 dmg spell and even more depending on what you draw if your opponent lets you draw, which he probably will considering the deck we want to play it in is burn.
However, "Potential" imply a lot of things going your way (AKA your opponent making bad choice) and Risk factor suffer the same problem browbeat does in this sense: if your opponent lets you draw the cards (which he probably will), we basically wasted a turn doing no damage or way less damage than we could have done. Don't forget that three mana is a lot to ask of burn. There are games where we don't even see the third land and assuming you'll have a fourth land out of your draw is not wise (Hell I'm stuck at one mana some games, but then again I'm at 18 lands :P). Not to mention you'll cast it during your turn if you want to drop a land for a potential burn spell, and that's assuming the burn spell(s) you draw are 1 CMC. We also have to assume that any card we discard for the jump-start has to be a land, for any other discard is a mistake.
We also assume that the max potential of the card is achieved when it's been casted twice, and that's TWO turn / SIX mana that is not spent on burning your opponent.
another thing: assuming a scenario where we have ten card drawn by turn 4, three are lands and six are 1-CMC, 3-DMG burn spells and one is risk factor. off course, all the burn spells have been casted. Opponnent is still at 2 life. Now I have to cast risk factor and it has to draw me both a land and another 1-CMC 3 dmg burn spell. if the burn spell(s) I draw are 2 CMC or I don't draw a land, I have to wait around doing nothing until turn 5 arrives, which is an additional turn my opponent could win. If Risk factor had been ANY other burn spell, this game would already be over.
There's a reason we didn't play, or stopped playing Browbeat in the first place: three mana for potentially no damage just to secure our next few turns is not something we want in burn when in most scenario where Browbeat can be cast, just another burn spell can do the trick and actually seal the game. seven is the magic number of burn spell you usually need to kill someone, and if one of those spell is replaced by a Browbeat or a Risk factor, we basically slow oursleves down by one turn. Also, I cannot imagine a scenario where I both cast and Jump-start Risk factor without being very behind in the game.
As much as I like the card, I'm siding with elconquistador1985 on this one.
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