"Spontaneous combustion is a myth. If you burst into flames, someone wanted you to" - Chandra Nalaar
"Sometimes you die a glorious death in battle. Sometimes you're just target practice" - Jaya Balard, Task Mage
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Competitive Burn Deck for standard.
Burn Decks share their origin with the better known red deck - 'Red Deck Wins' ("RDW"), originating from Dave Price's "Deadguy Red" in 1997. The decks of that time were based around mana-efficient creatures, a low cruve and resilience to disruption. While RDW has continued the tradition of focussing on efficient creatures, Burn decks focussed on mana-efficient burn spells to further minimise interactivity. When Burn Decks are strong, they play out like a combo-deck; needing to draw 7 'action' spells to win. While the current card pool is not incredibly strong for Red currently, with careful selection and tight play, playing Burn can be both a fun and highly rewarding experience.
CREATURES
Creatures are very important in a Burn deck (standard, modern or legacy). If every card needs to do 3 damage to be worthy of inclusion, creatures that can do more than that are in essence a source of card advantage. Goblin Fireslinger, Grim Lavamancer, Stromkirk Noble and Vexing Devil have proven themselves as capable of this. While the options for an aggressive burn style deck are fairly limited at the moment, we have found the highest rate of success by focussing on the aggressively costed 1-drops. This is because they add to strong openings, play around counter-magic well and, with the meta game currently dominated by vapor snag decks, play very well against that. While some of the creatures are poor top-decks later on, with careful deck design and experience, you can still get some value out of them. My absolute favourite opening play is still 'mountain, stormkirk noble, go'.
Chandra's Phoenix. An amazing creature, with a decent body and haste. Can continually get damage in against most decks. However, at 1RR it is expensive, and in decks that run 19-21 land, casting it consistently on 3 can be a problem. Definitely worth a try, but your experience may vary.
Goblin Fireslinger. A solid choice. While it will never win the game by itself, it is consistently an unblockable source of damage throughout the game. That by itself is quite valuable. Earlier versions of the deck used a full playset of fireslingers, but as the metagame has sped up, they have become a bit too slow. A great choice if your metagame is a bit slower, with more controlling decks.
Grim Lavamancer. So good that when it was reprinted, there was real concern that it would dominate the format. While this sadly has not happened, the lavamancer is often a red deck's best avenue to real card advantage. Burn decks tend to put a lot of cards in the graveyard, and there are options for more with effects like faithless looting, wild guess or dangerous wager. Against creature decks without a lot of removal, this creature can often dominate the board. It is a real stalwart against monogreen decks of any variety. Often sided-out where it will be too slow.
Stormblood Beserker. The most powerful red creature in the format. Unfortunately, playing Beserkers require deck building concessions that most of us have found too significant to willingly make. To enable bloodlust, you really need goblin fireslinger and gut shot in your deck, and including eight fairly subpar cards to enable four good ones is quite a poor idea. That the card is nincredibly weak to vapor snag doesnt help either.
Stromkirk Noble. In my testing, this has been the best creature early on. Especially on the play, this card can just get out of hand - I have won way too many games on the back of a 4/4 or 5/5 noble. A must have as a 4-of, but understand that it is necessary to side this card out in many matches, as your opponent will bring in cheap and easy ways to interact with it.
Torch Fiend. Aesnath has had a lot of experience with this Devil both main and in the sideboard. Especially great in monored decks, as a beater and a source of artifact destruction. A very nice way to bring in artifact removal post-board without dilluting your threat density. Often all this deck needs is a constant source of damage, and Torch Fiend can do that.
Vexing Devil. A highly controversial card that I was initially very wary of. However, having playing over a hundred matches now, I feel very comfortable in saying that they card is the real deal. While it is a fairly weak turn 1 play, it is an amazing followup to a noble into shrine opening for example. It is also extrmely strong in multiples. Again, some matchups require a lot more interactivity, so the Devil should be sided out.
BURN SPELLS
Burn spells are obviously the heart and soul of a burn deck. They're quick, flexible and often powerful. For reliability, you usually want to just pick the best 4-6 spells and include four of each, with the exception of Thunderous Wrath. Generally speaking, burn spells are preferred to creatures because they are difficult for most decks to interact with. Because most of them are instants and cheap, you can largely play around mana leak as well. You also gain what is called virtual card advantage, that is, although you cannot generate additional cards youself, your opponent is going to be drawing cards that are pointless against you (too much removal or counterspells for example), while all of your cards are effective against them - so while their deck may have 6 cards in hand, perhaps only half of those are relevant. As you play more games, you will often experience this situation - your opponent is up on cards, but behind on the board without a way to meaningfully interact. What you do care about are spells that gain life or spells that prevent your damage. For example, every time Vampire Nighthawk hits you it is effectively drawing them a card - that is much more relevant that the doomblade sitting in their hand. Thragtusk could be "enter the battlefield: draw 2 cards" against Burn.
One concept I learned from watching 2008 US National Champion Michael Jacob play was that of effective card advantage. As a Burn player, all you want is to get your opponent to 0 as quickly as possible. As a result, you should measure cards in terms of damage dealt. Following the 'Philosophy of Fire' (detailed below in strategy) a card is worth 3 damage (hence 7 action cards to win). Creatures are typically worth 3 damage, but can be worth more so long as they are efficient. With 40 effective action spells and 20 lands, you need to draw about 11 cards to kill your opponent, which you can achieve on the play on turn 5. Our testing has shown that this is often possible, especially with a particularly powerful draw. What effective card advantage concerns itself with is effects that interact with life totals. When your opponent doesnt block your stormkirk noble, you're drawing part of a card. When your grim lavamancer is able to activate mutliple times, you're drawing cards. Your shrine of burning rage that sits in play and ticks up generates card advantage over time. This is a concept that many players are unfamiliar with, but as a Burn mage you need to understand this concept. I have killed a great many control players with no cards in hand and they have a full grip; cards are no good if you're dead and that situation means they effectively mulliganed to zero. By the same logic, there is no need to rush to kill your opponent as quickly as possible. Sometimes that is the correct play, but sometimes it isnt. With 40 action spells in your deck, each worth 3 damage, you're going to draw about 2 points of damage each turn (actually slightly less, but for simplicity, think 2). Many players will try and control you to slowly grind you out - this doesnt work when their life is going down by 2 each turn. Knowing this, you can often sit on a shrine and just do nothing, forcing them to act. Many decks are not equipped to kill you as quickly as they need to; many opponent's just won't understand that they need to kill you ASAP.
These concepts support many of our sideboarding plans, which often involve sdeboarding into a lite-control deck.
Arc Trail. A very powerful spell, this is quite underrated currently. A lot of decks in the format are very vulnerable to Arc Trail, and this deck gets to play multiples main deck! This card can frequently win games as your opponent's will often play into it unsuspectingly. It is also good for just killing a creature and hitting your opponent. I play a full 4 of main deck, but am willing to side them out when the opponent doesn't have enough targets.
Bonfire of the Damned. The signature card of red in the format. If you can afford it, you should consider it. However, much like Thunderous Wrath, it can really burn in your opening hand and it isnt amazing in every matchup (most though). This deck will have serious trouble hard casting Bonfire for any value so you will be relying on the miracles. For this reason, I have found Arc Trail to be more valuable in the main deck, but Bonfire is an amazing sideboard option.
Bump in the Night. If you're splashing black, it is worth considering. While it will not trigger shrine and cannot ever remove creatures, it is still a powerful effect with flashback if your flood out. I have no experience with the Black Splash, but it is a good option worth exploring. Even more exciting are the sideboard options that splashing black brings.
Flames of the Firebrand. A more expensive Arc Trail. Because you are so unlikely to ever 'live the dream' and 3-for-1 your opponent, this card is often Arc trail 5-8. I have played a single copy out of the sideboard for exactly that reason. Worth considering if you are playing against a LOT of creature decks.
Galvanic Blast // Shock. Read the 'Philosophy of Fire' below in the strategy section. Shocks are best when your creatures are going to do all the damage and you just need some cheap interactivity. That is why these cards have been very popular in the RG Aggro and UWR Delver decks. Burn on the other hand, needs its cards to do as much damage as possible at a reasonable cost - most of us have found the shocks just too weak for inclusion.
Geistflame. Just doesn't do enough damage to be worth a card. Cards in a burn deck really need to be doing 3 damage (Arc Trail does 2+1, incinerate/searing spear/thunderbolt do 3) to be worthy of inclusion, geistflame is a 2-for-1 sometimes, but that isnt enough for consideration. Could be worth a sideboard slot.
Gut Shot. Very powerful in a tempo deck. However, as noted above, spells that are not doing 3-damage in some fashion are just too weak for this sort of deck. Should be avoided.
Incinerate // Searing Spear. The real workhorse cards of the burn deck. They are the closest we get to ligtning bolt in the format, and do much the same job. Generally, these should only go to the face, while you use Arc Trail and shocks to clear out creatures as necessary. A must at 4-of each. Incinerate ignoring regenerate will come up a surprising amount of the time.
Pillar of Flame. Unlike the shocks, Pillar, while still very bad at burning out your opponent, has an exile clause, making it very good against Delver decks, Zombie decks and anything with Strangleroot Geist. With the format as warped towards those decks as it is, this card is a mandatory 4-of. Can be sided-out against decks where the exile effect isnt relevant.
Thunderbolt. Very similar to Searing Spear, but able to kill x/4 fliers. There is a very important x/4 flier in the format - Restoration Angel. Thunderbolt is extremely powerful against decks relying on that card, or it goes to the face for good damage. You can play less than 4, but after Aesnath encouraged me to try the full playset, I have not looked back.
Thunderous Wrath. The miracle-lava axe. Amazing if miracled, absolutely horrible if it is in your opening hand, because you will just never be able to cast it. Can be worth inclusion if you have a way to get it out of your hand (faithless looting, wild guess etc). I used to run multiples, but now I don't play it at all.
ARTIFACTS
Red decks have always looked to artifacts for consistent damage in the long run, going all the way back to Cursed Scroll. While there are not a lot of options at the moment, we do have access to one of the best red cards ever printed. Sideboarding artifacts for specific matchups will be covered elsewhere.
Shrine of Burning Rage. Just insane. A turn 2 shrine on the play is often a free-win in the format, especially now that even post-sideboard, fewer and fewer decks are running real artifact removal. Learning when to tap out to play threats and when to keep mana open to use the Shrine takes time, but is very important. Often, all you will want to do is draw and pass our turn, see what your opponent does, then case all your instants on their endstep, once sorcery speed effects cannot target the shrine - getting the most value out of your shrine is critical to the success of this deck. It is the only card I have never sided out, in any matchup.
FILTER // DRAW
Unlike Legacy and Modern, where there are enough '1 card = 3 damage' effects to fill out nearly 40 slots of your deck, in Type 2 we have to content ourselves with other options. What most of the Red Mages here have found after testing is that it is better to run filter or draw effects instead of weaker spells. Why? Weak spells, like shock, are not really worth a whole card and will typically have a minimal impact. Draw spells let you find your key cards, smooth your draws which lets you hit your land drops consistently and after sideboarding, find your high impact cards more easily. Depending on deck construction, it is usual to have anywhere between 2 to 4 of these effects in your deck.
Desperate Ravings. Obviously only viable with a blue splash, Ravings has been championed as the best card draw spell in Type 2 today. While the randomness can hurt at times, it is important to remember that discarding is the same as never having drawn the spell in the first place. You will need to practice sequencing your spells to minimise risk from discard. As an instant, Ravings plays very well with the rest of the deck and the need to keep mana open with the Shrine of Burning Rage. The instant speed could work well with miracles. This card is the reason to splash blue.
Dangerous Wager. Much like a weaker faithless looting, without downside (yay!) or flashback (boo!). Feeds lavamancer well enough and can draw you cards if you're hellbent. Try it, you might like it!
Faithless Looting The premier red looting spell today. Good enough to see Legacy play, Looting will very quickly work its way through your deck to find what you need. Getting the most out of the spell does take some practice - as much as possible, you want to avoid paying the upfront cost too often - I know above we stressed that card advantage is not super important for this deck, but you still shouldnt be willingly discarding for no benefit. You will want to start holding lands after your 3rd to discard. Always discard additional copies of redundant cards first (extra stormkirk nobles and lavamancers, shrines of burning rage etc). This card is grim lavamancer's best friend.
Reforge the Soul. Has not turned out to be the powerhouse that we had hoped. Like the other miracles, it is simply too clunky when starting your hand, or drawn into with any of the other spells. While obviously very powerful against slow decks, the format is so aggressive that tapping out to refuel your opponent will often see them out you in an unwinnable position as soon as you pass priority. Do try it and let us know what your experiences were like.
Wild Guess. Red's Divination. Very similar to Dangerous Wager, both in cost and in practice. Zemanjaski and Aesnath found it to be very clunky in practice. If your deck is more heavily focussed on miracles, it is likely a good option.
Gitaxian Probe. For the smallest of costs, this cantrip lets you see your opponent's grip. If you're a fan of accumulating small advantages and grinding out games that end with a flurry of burn spells at the end, this might be the card for you. It has a small smoothing effect, which is nice, but it lets you sequence your plays with maximum effectiveness. Zemanjaski in particular has found that it helps a lot against UW Delver.
LANDS
A good mana base is the foundation of any successful deck. Depending on how you construct your mana curve, you will want between 19 and 21 lands. Don't hesitate to ask for help with your manabase, there is no easier way to throw games away than to have a poor one. See the example lists below for ideas. We have experimented with different splashes and effects, so I will try and explain the advantages of the different options below:
Blackcleave Cliffs // Dragonskull Summit. For the black splash. Black gives you a lot of options, like bump in the night maindeck or 'terror' effects after sideboarding. The splash also opens up powerful sideboard options like Surgical Extraction, Nihil Spellbomb and with a more robust manabase, Curse of Death's Hold. Currently, none of us have heavily experimented with a black splash, but the power level is certainly there as are the metagame effective options, so it is a path worth considering.
Copperline Gorge // Rootbound Crag. For the green splash, which means you want to sideboard Ancient Grudge, as there isnt really any other reason to play this colour. I do feel that the splash is worth it for Ancient Grudge alone, but it is very much a personal choice. Because the deck is so many hungry early on, I prefer Copperline Gorge so that the first 3 land drops will always come into play untapped. Relying on Rootbound Crag runs the risk of only having them in your opening hand and needing to mulligan. Because the deck mulligans SO VERY POORLY, you really need to avoid this possibility. At the moment, I am running 21 land (4 copperline gorge, 16 mountain, 1 rootbound crag) and have found that to be a reliable and flexible mana base.
Ghost Quarter. Sometimes the format requires for interactivity with powerful spell-lands. There are a lot of powerful lands from Innistrad Block and if you feel that you need the option, Ghost Quarter can let you destroy them. Might be worth considering against Glimmerpost out of a Wolf Run Ramp deck.
Hellion Crucible. A new manland from M13. If you find yourself flooding out and needed a way to spend mana, the Crucible is worth consideration as a 1 or 2 of.
Kessig Wolf Run. Amazing in creature heavy decks, more of a liability in a deck that is only running creatures that are basically burn spells. Worth considering as a way to alleviate mana flood.
Stensia Bloodhall. Very expensive, but quite an effective finisher in grindy matches. Plays very well with flashbacked bump in the night obviously. If your deck has a more robust mana base and the black splash, having even a single copy is a nice way to close out games.
Sulfur Falls. For the blue splash. There isnt good enough mana fixing to really support a blue splash at the moment, but if you want to try desperate ravings, this is the way to do it.
SIDEBOARDING
A great difficulty with playing aggressive decks is sideboarding well. It is very easy to dilute your deck and fill it with too many reactive cards. Remember that you need to draw 7-8 action spells to kill your opponent in a timely fashion - siding out 'action' spells for reactive cards is going to slow your draw. Generally, you should avoid this, even if sideboarding into a lite-control deck.
I like to sideboard out creatures when they won't be effective. For example, agains the Mono Green Infect decks, Vexing Devil doesnt interact with them at all, so it is a fairly weak card. You need cards that can kill their creatures, or clock them. In this regard, Stromkirk Noble and Grim Lavamancer are better. Against control however, Grim Lavamancer can be very slow, and is vulnerable to their spot removal and sweepers - so I take a few copies of him out. On the draw against RG Aggro or Zombies, both of which have lots of blockers and are very quick, Stromkirk Noble is a poor choice. It can be beneficial to take your time and really think through what choices you want to make. It took me a long while to realise that against Esper Control, I didnt want to be sideboarding out arc trail for whipflare - sure, whipflare kills souls, but arc trail can burn the face or get attacks through. Whipflare is best when I want to control, and I am not going to out control the control deck.
Red Cards
Combust. Incredible for killing two real problem cards - Restoration Angel and Hero of Bladehold. If these cards are causing you problems, this is the best possible answer. Don't play too many, because they only kill creatures.
Smelt. Cheap, effective artifact removal. With Swords and Trading Post so prevalent in the metagame, some sort of artifact removal is essential.
Manabarbs. Very powerful against control decks and ramp decks. In these matchups, your own life total is largely irrelevant, so you just want to be able to punish them severely for trying to play threats. Highly recommened.
Slagstorm. A powerful sweeper. While whipflare is generally sufficient, sometimes you need to kill bigger creatures. Good against WB Tokens and monogreen infect (doesn't trigger Wild Defiance and can hit their artifact creatures)
Red Sun's Zenith. Not an amazing card, largely made irrelevant by Pillar of Flame now. However, if you're playing a lot of zombies and having trouble with them, it is an additional exile effect worth considering.
'Threaten' effects (Traitorous Blood/Mark of Mutiny/Act of Treason/Act of Aggression). A very powerful effect against the Titan decks that I am a huge fan of. Especially nasty if they are using it to stabalize. Traitorous Blood is typically a little more versatile than Act of Treason or Mark of Mutiny. Act of Aggression is a heavy life investment, but allows for some really powerful plays (remember that it is an instant).
Whipflare. The cornerstone of sideboarding into the lite-control deck; very powerful against weenie decks and very important for fighting Gesit of st Traft.
Black Cards
'Terrors' (Doom Blade, Go for the Throat). With a black splash, you open up serious removal options. This can be very important for killing titans, restoration angel or hero of bladehold.
Nihil Spellbomb. Very powerful against Delver decks with pikes (so, nearly all of them) and control decks, as well as anything trying to reanimate. Because you can pay the sacrifice cost, it effectively cycles as well.
Surgical Extraction. More targeted graveyard hate. Can remove key cards from your opponent's deck. Worth considering even without the black splash.
Curse of Death's Hold. While I have no experience with this card in this sort of deck, if you are taking the sideboarding into a lite-control deck plan very seriously, this is a powerful option to lock down the board.
Please don't ever play discard effects in this deck. It just isnt a good idea. You need cards that can kill them (that is why we don't maindeck 'terrors'), and discard effects never can. You need to draw burn, not duress.
Green Cards
Ancient Grudge This is the reason to splash green. Grudge is incredibly powerful against any deck with artifacts, which, with Scars-block still legal, is most of them. I splash green just for this card and have never been disapointed.
Artifacts
Grafdigger's Cage Very useful against control decks and Zombies, when you want to sit back on shrine. I wouldn't play more than a single because it does nothing in multiples and is a terrible top deck.
Torpor Orb very powerful against the Pod decks that are so reliant on 'enters the battlefield' effects. If these decks continue to become more popular, this will be worth some sideboard slots
The most important article on playing this sort of deck you will ever read. Read it. Read it again. This will help you make effective decisions in difficult positions.
It is no secret that very aggressive decks do not mulligan well. To understand why, think of the burn deck as a combo deck - you need to assemble 7 units of 3 damage to win the game! Obviously, some spells will do more (creatures potentially, shrine of burning rage) while others will do less (shocks, arc trail). If you need to draw 7 action spells, and your deck is about average (40 spells, 20 land), you will typically need to see 10-12 cards to win, without any meaningful interaction from your opponent (lifegain, discard or countermagic basically). The less aggressive your opponent's deck, the more time your have to draw parts of your combo - that is why this deck does better against the midrange and control decks, but can struggle against the aggro decks (see the matchup guide in the section below).
So, we know that we don't want to mulligan if we don't have to. So what do we keep? While this can differ significantly between different matchups and whether you are on the play or draw, to begin, lets start with the best case scenario, we're on the play and our hand is: a stormkirk noble, a shrine of burning rage, two or three land and two or three other spells (creatures or burn). This hand can develop naturally, landing two big threats that threaten to win the game by themselves right away. Having something to do for at least the first three turns means you have a few draw steps to draw into more action. Ideally, you will play out threats for the first three turns, hit your third land drop and then just sit back on the shrine, burning the opponent on their endstep as necessary (to avoid sorcery speed removal for the shrine). Hands like this are an easy keep.
Also playable are the hands with a Stormkirk Noble or Grim Lavamancer (or both) and a mix of spells and land. This hand is only slightly worse than above, but will need to draw decently to really apply pressure. In particular, the grim lavamancer is going to want you to start burning ASAP so he can be activated and not just a less cool Mon's Goblin Raiders. The mutliple lavamancer hand is probably still playable, but you will want there to be plenty of burn in your hand so you can get them active.
One of the hands that is most challenging to play is the 'burn hand'. It will be a mix of a few lands and all spells, maybe a vexing devil or two, and no shrine. Unlike the previous hands, where you have a consistent source of damage, and in many cases inevitability, here you are going to have to rely entirely on drawing more spells to win. These are not the most fun matches to play, but you do need to keep hands like this. In particular, you should lean towards keeping when you have multiples of arc trail or vexing devil - arc trail because it can simultaneously control their board and lower their life, vexing devil because it does so much damage when played early - you will always want to play your devils on turn 1 and 2 with this type of hand to maximise the chance they just take the damage, you can finish them off with burn once they're ready to deal with more devils. If the hand is mostly pillar of flame about half land, you should probably mulligan.
What I hope these hands demonstrate is that you need a clear path to victory - if you had to, you should be able to explain to someone why how that hand would win. In the first example, my plan would be to play noble into shrine. Either of those threats can quite quickly end the game by themselves. By the time my opponent is able to stabalize or start playing out pressure themselves, I will have a hand stocked with burn and enough land to play draw go. The second hand will try and do the same, although it will obviously be slower. The third hand requires real forethought - you need to be able to accurately assuage how quickly you can unload your hand and how much damage you REALLY have to get them with - sometimes killing their creatures is correct as it will let you have more drawsteps. This is typically true of both arc trail and pillar of flame. You can see why the third hand is weaker just by appreciating the explanation you would have to give another, 'my path to victory is to use the 12 points of burn in my hand, then hopefully draw another 8 points, sometimes between now and the time they kill me'. Hands without consistent sources of damage are always going to be weaker than hands with consistent sources of damage, but you do need to make do.
So when to mulligan? There are no hard rules, but typically you don't want to keep hands with only 1 land or more than 4; the first hand is too incosistent and prone to 'choking' on its mana - you are typically going to need to cast 2 or more spells in a turn and this hand needs to draw a lot of land to unload all of its spells fast enough. The second hand probably does not have enough fuel to get the job done - though I would consider keeping Stromkirk Noble + Shrine of Burning Rage and 5 land; you at least have some early plays to buy you time to draw into more action. Grim Lavamancer and almost all land is pointless; the lavamancer needs fuel. Vexing Devil is even worse - he is only worth it when you can apply pressure and the 4 damage is relevant; if your hand is too slow you are often just throwing away a card.
Whether or not to keep a 1 land hand on the draw is a matter of personal preference (risk adversity really), but you need to consider the hand you have:
- how many 1 mana plays do you have? You might be on one land for a while, so having multiple creatures to play can help. If you only have one creature, you should strongly consider a mulligan.
- what is the highest mana cost in your hand? Versions of the deck I run have the highest cost at 2; so even drawing 1 land will let me cast every spell in my deck.
- what do you know about your opponent's deck? Some decks are slower and cannot punish a slower draw from yourself as heavily.
I run 21 land in my deck, which is towards the higher end for this sort of deck. I also have 3 gitaxian probe and 12 1-drop creatures. The highest cost in my deck is 2; as such I am very prone to keeping 1 land hands on the draw and even sometimes on the play if the hand is aggressive enough and the matchup calls for it. Only experience will really help you understand when a hand has enough action to win.
MATCHUPS
While the Standard metagame changes heavily with every new set, one of the advantages of playing burn is that while your opponent's can come and go, the way you play gainst the major archetypes is largely the same. As a result, I have broken the strategic elements down by archetype, then by deck type:
Aggro (Bx Zombies / RG Aggro). These decks can be a bit of a nightmare. Both decks have access to lifegain, and both can kill you very quickly. Both are filled with creatures that can block your Stromkirk Noble. Your best bet Game 1 will still be noble into shrine; failing that Grim Lavamancer has a lot of targets against these decks. If you can land a shrine, neither deck will usually have a maindeck answer to it; use this opportunity to switch to the control role and fight to keep threats off the board and to maintain your life total. You need to be conservative with your pillar of flame, saving them for the undying creatures. Otherwise, your goal is to maintain your lifetotal - get those threats off the board ASAP, don't fret too much about getting the best possible arc trail. The higher your lifetotal, the more time your shrine can tick up and you can deal more burn. Post-board, sweepers, grafdigger's cage (for zombies) and artifact removal should come in, Stomkirk Noble can come out. Overall, these matchups are slightly unfavourable.
Aggro-Control (UW Delver, Mono Blue Delver, Mono Blue Wizards). The most dominant decks in the format currently, these fish decks have historically been our natural prey. Unfortunately, WotC decided that Blue Mages needed even more advantages and printed Geist of St Traft - a hexproof beater that our deck is very poorly positioned against Game 1. Often Game 1 will be determined by whether or not they have the early Geist; if they don't they are in a lot of trouble, if they do, you are. Stromkirk Noble and Shrine are still a beating if you can land them, while pillar of flame and arc trail do good work against Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage. Grim Lavamancer can do a lot of work if they don;t have gut shot. Basically, you need to establish a clock and keep their threats off the board as much as possible - something this deck is well equipped to do. If you can keep them on the backfoot they are in real trouble, because Geist is awful in defence. Post board, I like to take out the Stromkirk Noble, due to their weakness to Vapor Snag and the incoming celestial purge. Whipflare can deal with Geist, Combust with Restoration Angel. You absolutely need artifact removal for their equipment. Basically, you will want to land a threat, protect against Geist and as best you can, play around divine offering, timely reinforcements and any line of play that allows them to play and equip a sword of war and peace then hit you with it - do not allow that!
The Mono Blue version is even weaker to whipflare and more reliant on equipment - the deck offers basically no clock at all without their Runechanter's pikes. They also don't have access to celestial purge, timely reinforcements, Geist of St Traft or divine offering...yeah, the Mono Blue version might be excellent against in the Delver mirror, but it is terrible against us. The Talrand version in particular is poorly positioned - a 4 mana 2/2 is not a big threat to a burn deck.
These decks are very powerful, very consistent and very rewarding of skilled play. You will need to rise to the occasion. Versions with the Geist of St Traft are slightly favourable, versions without are very favourable.
Wolf Run Ramp. This is a weird matchup, almost entirely dependant on how much you want to beat them and how much they want to beat you. Game 1 they are unlikely to be able to beat a Shrine or a Noble with multiple devils draw. If you really want to win, torpor orb and threaten effects are a huge game here, shutting off a lot of the effects they desperately need to stabalize. Hitting them with an inferno titan after they think they have stabalized is often fatal. At the same time, they might have a board full of sweepers, Thragtusk and other lifegain. Alternatively, they might be configured to win the mirror or beat control, in which case the matchup gets a lot easier. Game 1 you just want to and a shrine and hit them as hard as possible as quickly as possible. Post board, the matchup can be very difficult; they will likely have access to a plethora of lifegain and sweepers, as well as artifact removal for your shrine. The quality of your respective draws is very important - it might be worth mulliganing aggressively to find the right threats. If you really want to win this matchup, a full playset of threatens, a torpor orb and manabarbs will go a long way. This matchup can be very unfavourable to very favourable, depending how their deck is built.
Control. There are so many variants of control these days, it is difficult to cover them all. They will all try to stop your threats from putting any pressure on and to maintain their life total. Traditionally, they will try to stabalize under 10 life, using their life as a buffer to generate card advantage. This works against most aggressive decks because they lack serious burn - we do not, so they are never safe. Some are classical (UB / UW or Esper) while others are mono-coloured and typically based around trading post. Game 1 you just want shrine of burning rage - decks without white will typically just lose to that as long as you can back it up. You just need to be patient, play out your threats slowly and make sure to keep shrine mana available (if they are in colours that can kill it). Don't overextend into sweepers, play around countermagic as much as possible (or play into it to force them to tap out so you can punish them in your turn). At some point, they will need to sweep the board, which lets you resolve something or burn them; alternatively they will try to tap out for an arbitrary fatty, letting you often burn them to death. Post sideboard, depending on their build and colours, you may want threaten effects (they use big creatures) or artifact removal (they use lifegain / trading post) and probably manabarbs or Koth of the Hammer. Take out your lowest impact removal (probably Arc Trail). These matchups are very favourable.
Infect. Comes in a few varieties. Mono Black is a very hard match, because Phyrexian Crusader has pro. red. If you have dismember in the board, you have a chance. The deck is not popular, so I have no outs to this version in my board. Much more common is Mono Green Infect or UG Infect, built around Rancor and Wild Defiance. Our deck should just roll over these decks. They have a very low creature count, rely heavily on phyrexian mana and mulligan even worse than we do - they are much more pure combo, whereas we can just land a shrine or stormkirk noble. Game 1, all you want to do is land a Noble or Shrine to start a clock, then use a lavamancer and/or burn to kill their threats. Note that a lavamancer or a shrine of burning rage will not trigger wild defiance. IIf they are tapped low, ALWAYS play your burn spells on their turn to kill their creatures - they are going to use up their apostle's blessing and mutagenic growth on our turn, where it cannot add to the poison total that way. If they are untapped, wait until their attack step and just wait to see what they do - it is a game of cat and mouse, where you can wait. If you do nothing, they will typically no cast a pump spell. If they do, burn their creature in response. Try to do the same when they attempt to equip rancor. You just need to be patient and get the cards out of their hand. Their deck typically only has 8-12 creatures plus inkmoth nexus, so you can conceivably kill everything they draw and strand spells in their hand. A single noble or shrine is typically sufficient to win game 1 as long as you're patient. Post sideboard, you want dismember, effects like whipflare (no targeting) and ancient grudge - it kills inkmoth nexus and ichorclaw myr and no amount of titanic growth or mutagenic growth will save it. They also commonly bring in spellskite, and grudge is a very easy solution. The MonoBlack version is highly unfavourable (depending on their draw), then MonoGreen and UG versions are extremely favourable.
Midrange (Pod or no Pod; Naya or Bant). These decks can be a real problem. They have access to lifegain and creatures that can block noble. They are often a bit weak to arc trail killing all of their early dorks. Bant in particular can be a nightmare when they have phantasmal image copying thragtusk. Just do your best to keep them on the back foot, apply consistent pressure and hope they stumble on mana. Unfortunately, things get worse post board when they bring in artifact removal, celestial purge and more lifegain. Drowning has experimented with Torpor Orb to a lot of sucess (makes sense) and that is something I will try soon. Arc Trail and even Flames of the Firebrand can be a big game against this sort of deck. The Naya matchup is about even, the Bant matchup is slightly unfavourable.
This was the first version of the latest deck that I have been running. It was heavily based on a similar deck posted by Aesnath, so credit to him. The deck has the best 12 creatures, 20 powerful burn spells and a solid mana base. Gitaxian Probe has been a bit of an experiment that I am happy with; knowing the contents of my opponent's hand has let me play around a great many troublesome situations. The minor deck thinning and improve reliability are nice as well. The sideboard is aimed at beating Delver, with the options of sideboarding into control against some of the format's aggro decks.
No huge changes here, but the list is a little more refined. I want the extra land, to help deal with the 'mana choke'. The sideboard changes reflect what i have been facing a lot of online.
A similar deck with bigger creatures, but no green splash. Torch Fiend is a powerful sideboard option, able to keep swords off the field and still beatdown. Bonfire can be a blowout against unsuspecting decks. Metamorph is good against both legends and titans. A great deck choice if you want the opportunity to out play your opponent.
A very aggressive deck with bigger creatures. You will need to carefully plan your turns to get the most out of the synergy between faithless looting and additional copies of itself, as well as Chandra's Phoenix. Knowing what to keep and what to discard is essential - but your lavamancers will be very powerful indeed! This version can draw a little worse and still hit hard thanks to the consistency from looting and the more robust creature base. The sideboard is well equipped to deal with the current metagame.
He goes first and leads with island ponder, then ponder again and evolving wilds. I have stormkirk noble then grim lavamancer, passing with shock up. Without having seen him crack, I think he is esper control or esper spirits. I wear him down a little, he cracks for plains then plays glacial fortress. I hit him a little more and he wraths. I loot through my deck, play a lavamancer which he 187s with Chandra the firebrand off of a sulfur falls. Lame. I unload my hand on Chandra, then reload with dangerous wager, but he has another Chandra to keep my x/1s off the board. I dig again and find a shrine, but I am not able to deal with 6 spirit tokens followed by a rite of ruin, leaving me with 2 land.
Sideboarding: +2 ratchet bomb, +2 grafdigger's cage, +1 kessig wolf run, +1 koth, +2 whipflare. -2 ancient grudge, -4 pillar of flame, -2 galvanic blast.
I start with noble into shrine, followed by Grim lavamancer. He has some ponder and some land, before temporal mastery leads to Chandra killing the lavamancer before I can activate it. However, an incinerate followed by an arc trail (targeting him for 2, me for 1) and another hit from the stomkirk noble leave him at 5 with a shrine on 6.
Sideboarding: None
game 3 starts with more land and ponder, while I have noble into thunderous wrath and another noble. not at all a slow start. Then things get weird. He has sphere of the suns into day of judgment into two solemn simulacrum, and with that, im basically toast. I find a shrine, and it looks like I can race him, but another rite of ruin forces me to sacrifice it.
Pretty upsetting, he had some weird cards in game 3 that I hadn't seen early and didnt expect to be in his deck. I would have sideboarded differently had I known, such that I wouldnt have ben blown out (hopefully).
Result: 1-2
Round 2 - RUG Delver
I lead with noble, which immediately meets a pillar of flame. Sad. I have fireslinger and another mountain, looting to discard extra land and keep a hand of shock, pillar of flame x 3. Sometimes you have to set the world on fire. Snapcaster mage flashes back pillar of flame on my fireslinger, who pings him for one and dies to shock in return. Huntmaster of the fells is the follow up. He eats a pillar and there is a race between his wolf and me finding threats. Daybreak ranger and another snapcaster eat removal, but his 1-of maindeck consecrated sphinx seals it.
Sideboarding: -2 ancient grudge, -2 fireslinger, -2 pillar of flame, +2 whipflare, +1 kessig wolf run, +1 koth of the hammer, +2 traitorous blood
I keep a hand without a one drop (I only have 8 creatures now), but I have turn two shrine, turn 4 koth available, with some removal. I resolve exactly that and Koth starts going to town. Huntmaster and wolf get whipflarred, and my hand is all instant burn and I have enough of it to protect Koth for a while. He kills Koth with incinerate, snapcaster flashing back incinerate, but Snapcaster cannot block Stromkirk Noble who deals enough damage to make the shrine lethal.
I keep a lose hand of two land, shrine, all removal, after he goes to 6. I figure that I am actually playing a control role, and the extra cards will help make up for the card draw deficit. Having two arc trails in hand was also a factor. I loot on turn two, finding Koth. He plays a third land and passes with mana leak open. I play stromkirk noble, which gets leaked, allowed me to resolve shrine. He misses a land drop so ponders and leaves his mana open. I pass without playing my fourth land. He taps out for garruk, I shock the wolf and resolve Koth, killing Garruk. Another Garruk leads to the same play, then I resolve a fireslinger and a lavamancer. He has to unload his whole hand and flashback a snacaster to kill Koth on 5 loyalty (pillar, pillar, flashback pillar). The combination of shrine, lavamancer and fireslinger finish him off.
Result: 2-1
Round 3 - BR Zombies
he opens with diregraf ghoul and I immediately regret my keep of four land, pillar, galvanic, Lavamancer. I play a land, but hold the Lavamancer, shocking his diregraf ghoul on his attack step. He plays a mortarpod and passes. Frowny face. I play out a shrine, then he plays two gravecrawlers. I put down the Lavamancer and a Stromkirk Noble, then pillar of flame a gravecrawler. He kills it in response with the trigger from mortarpod. This feels like a mistake, while it saves the gravecrawler, it costs him time dealing with my lavamancer, since his next turn is just to replay the crawler, equip it with mortarpod and kill the lava wizard - effectively timewalking himself to save a card. We trade some blows before a geth's verdict kills my noble. Meanwhile, he replays gravecrawler, puts down a highborn ghoul and I am burning through my deck, collecting burn. He sacrifices a gravecrawler to mortarpod then brimstone volleys me, putting me within lethal next turn, no matter what. He is on 15 life, I have 13 counters on my shrine. I burn him then crack the shrine and we're on to game 2!
I keep a hand of shrine, whipflare, galvanic blast, looting, incinerate and two land. Amazing against any non-gravecrawler opening, but that is what he has. He follows it up with Highborn ghoul, but whipflare sends them to the sin-bin. He plays another highborn ghoul, but stumbles on land and cannot resolve the gravecrawler. I play the shrine and shock the ghoul, but he has another gravecrawler from his hand next turn, followed by the one from the graveyard. I cast looting and flash it back, looking for an answer, while the shrine keeps ticking up. I find arc trail and lavamancer, wiping his board and playing down the wizard. Pillar of flame exiles the messenger, forcing him to brimstone volley the lavamancer, who burns him in response. Another lavamancer meant I could burn threats as he played them. A manic vandal was a brief worry, but I had the mana to activate the shrine in response. Two more hits from the lavamancer sealed it.
Result: 2-0
Evaluation: Im happy with how the deck is playing pre- and post-board. I probably want another Koth, he is just a nightmare for control decks to deal with. Sideboarding into a pseudo-control deck against aggro and midrange has been working well, although the exact numbers need work, I might want an extra whipflare. Good to get some games in against more solid competition.
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I personally think that Noble are one of the best one drops in magic however I havent gotten my hands on any yet. Your deck seems to have a great build, but I would have to recommend putting in Vexing Devil. It's essentially a 1 mana 4 damage burn spell. I know that it loses your board advantage, but you don't need this in a burn deck. My sideboard varies from day to day, but I usually run Grafdigger's cage and some arctrails (replace stormblood). IMO I would have to recomend Hellrider as well since he is a burn spell within a 3/3. I have no idea why I don't run faithless looting and i plan on doing so when I find them -_-.
Last FNM performance:
2-0 RU Delver
2-1 MiRUcle
2-0 Solar Flare(Shrine one both games for me haha)
Overall I am very pleased with the deck, but it does need tweaking. The Solar Flare game was luck, but I simply played against some proto decks in my first two matches.
I would really like to run your deck this friday and see how it does compared to mine. If I do I will let you know the results.
Cool deck. I LOVE hellrider, but I'm not running enough creatures to get value from him sadly. Still, he might be worth it, even as a 3/3 haste with upside.
I don't think I can make the devil work without brimstone volley and that would involve changing the deck too much
I hope you like it - tap out as little as possible!
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Vexing Devil isn't the answer we've been looking for. Sure, 4 damage is nice, but letting your opponent choose when to take that damage makes Devil less of a force then it should be.
I've been looking for a direction to take my red deck in, and this looks like it might be the way. I'll start tweaking my deck this week, and hopefully get a chance to play it on Friday.
Thanks for dropping by, please do share what you come up with and your results. Im particularly interested on working a way through the card disadvantage of faithless looting. So long as you're discarding two dud cards anyway, its not a big drawback. I often have a hand of 3-4 burn spells and nothing else (I tend to discard extra 1-drops). With a lavamancer out, I don't think you really feel the card disadvantage, since every two discarded is a free shock.
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Bonfire of the Damned doesn't have flashback, it's a miracle.
As to the topic on the thread: I love it. A friend of mine stomps me all the time with an aggro burn deck similar to this (minus 2 Grim Lavamancer and 4 Vexing Devil with Goblin Arsonists and Goblin Grenades in their stead).
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Magic player 1995-2006(ish), 2011-Present
Standard: GWSelesnya Aggro, GWBVoice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWBUnblockable Auras, UGDefenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
I felt when building the deck that geistflame was too low impact. I have often just needed to burn them out from 7-10 life, and the point of damage difference immediately can be quite relevant. I usually don't want to flash back geistflame for 4 anyway - I almost never make it there!
I think similar problems arise with devil's play and past in flames. They're certainly great spells, but in a deck that is only running 19 land and typically won't go above 2 for most of the game, they are a little unwieldy.
I do feel there is potential in bonfire of the damned, but if I cannot miracle it, its basically uncastable.
One thing I have been thinking about is going RU, splashing blue instead of green for desperate ravings instead of faithless looting. Its a little pricier initially, and it is random discard (so you can't just always activate it), but it is card advantage after the second casting and digs just as deep. This would really cause problems with the ancient grudges however - although M13 is offering a new artifact removal spell (R - destroy target artifact). Nonethless, I feel the flashback is very important, and probably puts grudge slightly ahead.
I will be swapping out thunderous wrath for the new incinerate-lite spell. 3 copies of wrath and 1 looting will become 4 of the new spell - mostly for consistency reasons.
EDIT: drunk231 - How many grenades is he running off of only 8 goblins? What does his burn suite look like? Thanks for dropping by!
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We're currently working on getting 4 Chandra's Phoenix 2 Grim Lavamancer 4 Stormkirk Noble 4 Vexing Devil and maybe a Koth or two (or another Chandra), but he seems to be liking the mostly burn spells for the time being. He seems to pull a turn 3 Goblin Grenade/Reverberate for a quick 10 damage quite a bit, and if not gets me down to 10-12 by turns 4/5.
At FNM, he went 2-4 (and got a bye round 3) in 3 rounds. He lost to WB spirits 0-2 (and won the third game for fun to pass time between rounds) and lost 0-2 Heartless Lich round 2. Round 1 he was overrun with Lingering Souls and his opponent kept gaining life back too fast. Round 2 was against my deck from the Heartless Summoning variants page.
Obviously first cut will be Galvanic Blast, as he has 0 artifacts, but works as though he's running 8 Shocks though so lots of 1 drop burn. Thinking -4 Galvanic Blast +2 Arc Trail +2 Rolling Tremblor.
EDIT:
Also, the Thunderbolts will be moving to the sideboard and we will be looking for Shrines. He just started playing so most of his cards are all Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored, and he actually traded me for the deck and added Chandra.
Standard: GWSelesnya Aggro, GWBVoice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWBUnblockable Auras, UGDefenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
Cool. I think Koth is a lot better than Chandra in the abstract, but I can see the synergy. I imagine the deck runs into inconsistency problems? The combos are cute and extremely powerful, but I am rather risk abhorrent! I would rather cut the mainboard thunderbolts than the galvanic blasts - thunderbolt is pretty limited. Is the idea to just have more 3dmg burn?
For the spirits matchup I am currently using the ratchet bombs and whipflare (cheaper than temblor). Bombs for their anthems, flare for everything else. I side out the nobles to make space (since they can be blocked, whereas firelsinger and lavamancer cannot).
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He just started playing like a month ago and he's still learning the mechanics is the main problem, but mostly the deck seems to play consistantly. I didn't have all the cards he needed to fix the build, so he runs it as is until he can get the rest. At first the Thunderbolts were in fact for an extra 3 burn, but ultimately I suggested more 1 drop creatures.
Basic Recap of changes from my decklist posted:
-3 Thunderbolt
-4 Galvanic Blast
+4 Stormkirk Noble
+2 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Chandra's Phoenix or Stormblood Berserker.
Standard: GWSelesnya Aggro, GWBVoice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWBUnblockable Auras, UGDefenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
I think he likes the fact that 39 of the 40 spells cost 2 or less in his deck, so he never really gets mana screwed. That and he can fry all the little creatures that allow my decks to kill him. Budget is somewhat an issue at the moment, but he's also working on another build so progress has been halted at this time. For a player who just started 30 some odd days ago, he's doing quite well with what he has.
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Magic player 1995-2006(ish), 2011-Present
Standard: GWSelesnya Aggro, GWBVoice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWBUnblockable Auras, UGDefenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
I did try reforge the soul, but eventually went with dangerous wager. Reforge is very powerful, but the randomness of when you draw it really hurts. There is a bit of tension with basically using up all your mana, even at miracle cost.
But when it works....wow! It does win games. I might very well go back to using it, especially if I get rid of thunderous wrath for searing spear. Less dead draws that way.
In other news, one exam down yesterday, one on Friday, then next Thursday. I'll have another couple of games then, hopefully with some video if anyone can recommend some software.
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Played three quick matches at the local LGS before going out to dinner (got to find time when you can):
Match 1 - UG Mill
Yeah, a mill deck. I have to mull on the draw (hands with no land do happen with this deck), but I have a hand full of action. He opens with dreamtwist. The jigg is up I guess. I have noble into lavamancer and fireslinger, while he durdles and plays curse of the blood tome. Turns out getting milled gives you lots of lavamancer fuel. I killed him on turn 5 with a handful of burn.
Sideboarding: -2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Kessig Wolf Run, +1 Koth of the Hammer
He has a slow start, while I have fireslinger, although my lavamancerer gets mana leaked. Another fireslinger hits the field, but he follows up with invisible stalker and sword of body and mind. A miracled thunderous wrath puts him to 11; with a hand of incinerate, shock and two arc trails, I finish him quickly.
Result: 2-0
Match 2 - Naya Humans
If you don't know, stromkirk noble and arc trail are very good against humans. My opener had two of each. He concedes after turn 4 with all of his early creatures getting torched and me having a 4/4 and 3/3 nobles, with two fiend hunters in hand but no white mana.
I had a slow hand, looting turn 1 into turn 2 shrine. He had thalia, then a fiend hunter for my grim lavamancer. Hero of Bladehold soon followed, and I was flooding to 5 land, unable to find burn to remove Thalia.
I played a lavamancer and cracked the shrine to kill Hero. I hate doing that. Garruk killed my lavamancer, but the fireslinger and shock killed him. I found another lavamancer, but he started to flood the field with champion of lambholt and accorder paladin. That lavamancer was going to have to work overtime. A topdecked combust killed the fiend hunter, and over the following turns the lavamancer pair killed all his creatures. He had a champion of the parish, than thalia and another champion of lambholt. All died. A shrine of burning rage after flashing back looting would end the game if he couldnt find a hero (I was very low on lavamancer fuel). He did, but an incinerate to the dome, a lavamancer ping on the hero and a whipflare to wipe the board left him at 10 and the shrine at 8. He passed the turn, I passed back. He peaked at the top of his deck and extended his hand.
Result 2-0
Match 3 - Mono Blue Grand Architect
This is a really good matchup for this deck. I opened with noble into lavamancer. He had some land and some ponders. A dismember killed my noble and I resolved a shrine. A snapcaster flashedback the dismember on the lavamancer, who triggered to kill him in response. He was on 5 mana, so it was a race to tick the shrine up as quickly as possible. I arc trailed us both, then played another noble and lavamancer. He was on 12, played out the wurmcoil. Shrine was on 7; I had stromkirk noble, grim lavamancer and then a govblin fireslinger. I started by blocking with and killing my own noble. Then I sacrified the fireslinger. Finally, I untapped, pinged him with the lavamancer and cracked the shrine.
Sideboarding: -4 pillar of flame, -1 arc trail, +1 kessig wolf run, +1 koth of the hammer, +1 ancient grudge, +2 traitorous blood
Game two was just ugly. He pondered twice in two turns, but couldnt find a third land. I had noble into noble and fireslinger, beating him down quickly. I had a traitorous blood in my opener, so I just emptied the rest of my hand to force him to play a wurmcoil on 6. Arc trail burned away the images he tried to play, and a snapcaster. He was able to remove both nobles, but the fireslinger kept doing damage. He played the wurmcoil, I revealed my hand and he scooped.
Result 2-0
Let me know how it is working for you guys. I think the sideboard needs some real work, and im considering shifting out the thunderous wraths - they're great, but they really hurt in your opener. The new searing spear is probably an easy swap, but it may be worth trying brimstone volley.
I like Thunderbolt but only as a SB card because of the target restriction.
Good against cards like Restoration Angel and at worst is still 3 damage vs a player.
I really hope they put Shrine or something like it in M13. I love playing Mono Red when I can and this card is so important to the deck currently.
I'm considering Thunderbolt as a sideboard option instead of Surgical Extraction, due to the prevalence of Delver decks. Might be a meta call tomorrow once I head to my LGS.
"Sometimes you die a glorious death in battle. Sometimes you're just target practice" - Jaya Balard, Task Mage
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Competitive Burn Deck for standard.
Burn Decks share their origin with the better known red deck - 'Red Deck Wins' ("RDW"), originating from Dave Price's "Deadguy Red" in 1997. The decks of that time were based around mana-efficient creatures, a low cruve and resilience to disruption. While RDW has continued the tradition of focussing on efficient creatures, Burn decks focussed on mana-efficient burn spells to further minimise interactivity. When Burn Decks are strong, they play out like a combo-deck; needing to draw 7 'action' spells to win. While the current card pool is not incredibly strong for Red currently, with careful selection and tight play, playing Burn can be both a fun and highly rewarding experience.
CREATURES
Creatures are very important in a Burn deck (standard, modern or legacy). If every card needs to do 3 damage to be worthy of inclusion, creatures that can do more than that are in essence a source of card advantage. Goblin Fireslinger, Grim Lavamancer, Stromkirk Noble and Vexing Devil have proven themselves as capable of this. While the options for an aggressive burn style deck are fairly limited at the moment, we have found the highest rate of success by focussing on the aggressively costed 1-drops. This is because they add to strong openings, play around counter-magic well and, with the meta game currently dominated by vapor snag decks, play very well against that. While some of the creatures are poor top-decks later on, with careful deck design and experience, you can still get some value out of them. My absolute favourite opening play is still 'mountain, stormkirk noble, go'.
Goblin Fireslinger. A solid choice. While it will never win the game by itself, it is consistently an unblockable source of damage throughout the game. That by itself is quite valuable. Earlier versions of the deck used a full playset of fireslingers, but as the metagame has sped up, they have become a bit too slow. A great choice if your metagame is a bit slower, with more controlling decks.
Grim Lavamancer. So good that when it was reprinted, there was real concern that it would dominate the format. While this sadly has not happened, the lavamancer is often a red deck's best avenue to real card advantage. Burn decks tend to put a lot of cards in the graveyard, and there are options for more with effects like faithless looting, wild guess or dangerous wager. Against creature decks without a lot of removal, this creature can often dominate the board. It is a real stalwart against monogreen decks of any variety. Often sided-out where it will be too slow.
Stormblood Beserker. The most powerful red creature in the format. Unfortunately, playing Beserkers require deck building concessions that most of us have found too significant to willingly make. To enable bloodlust, you really need goblin fireslinger and gut shot in your deck, and including eight fairly subpar cards to enable four good ones is quite a poor idea. That the card is nincredibly weak to vapor snag doesnt help either.
Stromkirk Noble. In my testing, this has been the best creature early on. Especially on the play, this card can just get out of hand - I have won way too many games on the back of a 4/4 or 5/5 noble. A must have as a 4-of, but understand that it is necessary to side this card out in many matches, as your opponent will bring in cheap and easy ways to interact with it.
Torch Fiend. Aesnath has had a lot of experience with this Devil both main and in the sideboard. Especially great in monored decks, as a beater and a source of artifact destruction. A very nice way to bring in artifact removal post-board without dilluting your threat density. Often all this deck needs is a constant source of damage, and Torch Fiend can do that.
Vexing Devil. A highly controversial card that I was initially very wary of. However, having playing over a hundred matches now, I feel very comfortable in saying that they card is the real deal. While it is a fairly weak turn 1 play, it is an amazing followup to a noble into shrine opening for example. It is also extrmely strong in multiples. Again, some matchups require a lot more interactivity, so the Devil should be sided out.
Burn spells are obviously the heart and soul of a burn deck. They're quick, flexible and often powerful. For reliability, you usually want to just pick the best 4-6 spells and include four of each, with the exception of Thunderous Wrath. Generally speaking, burn spells are preferred to creatures because they are difficult for most decks to interact with. Because most of them are instants and cheap, you can largely play around mana leak as well. You also gain what is called virtual card advantage, that is, although you cannot generate additional cards youself, your opponent is going to be drawing cards that are pointless against you (too much removal or counterspells for example), while all of your cards are effective against them - so while their deck may have 6 cards in hand, perhaps only half of those are relevant. As you play more games, you will often experience this situation - your opponent is up on cards, but behind on the board without a way to meaningfully interact. What you do care about are spells that gain life or spells that prevent your damage. For example, every time Vampire Nighthawk hits you it is effectively drawing them a card - that is much more relevant that the doomblade sitting in their hand. Thragtusk could be "enter the battlefield: draw 2 cards" against Burn.
One concept I learned from watching 2008 US National Champion Michael Jacob play was that of effective card advantage. As a Burn player, all you want is to get your opponent to 0 as quickly as possible. As a result, you should measure cards in terms of damage dealt. Following the 'Philosophy of Fire' (detailed below in strategy) a card is worth 3 damage (hence 7 action cards to win). Creatures are typically worth 3 damage, but can be worth more so long as they are efficient. With 40 effective action spells and 20 lands, you need to draw about 11 cards to kill your opponent, which you can achieve on the play on turn 5. Our testing has shown that this is often possible, especially with a particularly powerful draw. What effective card advantage concerns itself with is effects that interact with life totals. When your opponent doesnt block your stormkirk noble, you're drawing part of a card. When your grim lavamancer is able to activate mutliple times, you're drawing cards. Your shrine of burning rage that sits in play and ticks up generates card advantage over time. This is a concept that many players are unfamiliar with, but as a Burn mage you need to understand this concept. I have killed a great many control players with no cards in hand and they have a full grip; cards are no good if you're dead and that situation means they effectively mulliganed to zero. By the same logic, there is no need to rush to kill your opponent as quickly as possible. Sometimes that is the correct play, but sometimes it isnt. With 40 action spells in your deck, each worth 3 damage, you're going to draw about 2 points of damage each turn (actually slightly less, but for simplicity, think 2). Many players will try and control you to slowly grind you out - this doesnt work when their life is going down by 2 each turn. Knowing this, you can often sit on a shrine and just do nothing, forcing them to act. Many decks are not equipped to kill you as quickly as they need to; many opponent's just won't understand that they need to kill you ASAP.
These concepts support many of our sideboarding plans, which often involve sdeboarding into a lite-control deck.
Bonfire of the Damned. The signature card of red in the format. If you can afford it, you should consider it. However, much like Thunderous Wrath, it can really burn in your opening hand and it isnt amazing in every matchup (most though). This deck will have serious trouble hard casting Bonfire for any value so you will be relying on the miracles. For this reason, I have found Arc Trail to be more valuable in the main deck, but Bonfire is an amazing sideboard option.
Bump in the Night. If you're splashing black, it is worth considering. While it will not trigger shrine and cannot ever remove creatures, it is still a powerful effect with flashback if your flood out. I have no experience with the Black Splash, but it is a good option worth exploring. Even more exciting are the sideboard options that splashing black brings.
Flames of the Firebrand. A more expensive Arc Trail. Because you are so unlikely to ever 'live the dream' and 3-for-1 your opponent, this card is often Arc trail 5-8. I have played a single copy out of the sideboard for exactly that reason. Worth considering if you are playing against a LOT of creature decks.
Galvanic Blast // Shock. Read the 'Philosophy of Fire' below in the strategy section. Shocks are best when your creatures are going to do all the damage and you just need some cheap interactivity. That is why these cards have been very popular in the RG Aggro and UWR Delver decks. Burn on the other hand, needs its cards to do as much damage as possible at a reasonable cost - most of us have found the shocks just too weak for inclusion.
Geistflame. Just doesn't do enough damage to be worth a card. Cards in a burn deck really need to be doing 3 damage (Arc Trail does 2+1, incinerate/searing spear/thunderbolt do 3) to be worthy of inclusion, geistflame is a 2-for-1 sometimes, but that isnt enough for consideration. Could be worth a sideboard slot.
Gut Shot. Very powerful in a tempo deck. However, as noted above, spells that are not doing 3-damage in some fashion are just too weak for this sort of deck. Should be avoided.
Incinerate // Searing Spear. The real workhorse cards of the burn deck. They are the closest we get to ligtning bolt in the format, and do much the same job. Generally, these should only go to the face, while you use Arc Trail and shocks to clear out creatures as necessary. A must at 4-of each. Incinerate ignoring regenerate will come up a surprising amount of the time.
Pillar of Flame. Unlike the shocks, Pillar, while still very bad at burning out your opponent, has an exile clause, making it very good against Delver decks, Zombie decks and anything with Strangleroot Geist. With the format as warped towards those decks as it is, this card is a mandatory 4-of. Can be sided-out against decks where the exile effect isnt relevant.
Thunderbolt. Very similar to Searing Spear, but able to kill x/4 fliers. There is a very important x/4 flier in the format - Restoration Angel. Thunderbolt is extremely powerful against decks relying on that card, or it goes to the face for good damage. You can play less than 4, but after Aesnath encouraged me to try the full playset, I have not looked back.
Thunderous Wrath. The miracle-lava axe. Amazing if miracled, absolutely horrible if it is in your opening hand, because you will just never be able to cast it. Can be worth inclusion if you have a way to get it out of your hand (faithless looting, wild guess etc). I used to run multiples, but now I don't play it at all.
Red decks have always looked to artifacts for consistent damage in the long run, going all the way back to Cursed Scroll. While there are not a lot of options at the moment, we do have access to one of the best red cards ever printed. Sideboarding artifacts for specific matchups will be covered elsewhere.
Unlike Legacy and Modern, where there are enough '1 card = 3 damage' effects to fill out nearly 40 slots of your deck, in Type 2 we have to content ourselves with other options. What most of the Red Mages here have found after testing is that it is better to run filter or draw effects instead of weaker spells. Why? Weak spells, like shock, are not really worth a whole card and will typically have a minimal impact. Draw spells let you find your key cards, smooth your draws which lets you hit your land drops consistently and after sideboarding, find your high impact cards more easily. Depending on deck construction, it is usual to have anywhere between 2 to 4 of these effects in your deck.
Dangerous Wager. Much like a weaker faithless looting, without downside (yay!) or flashback (boo!). Feeds lavamancer well enough and can draw you cards if you're hellbent. Try it, you might like it!
Faithless Looting The premier red looting spell today. Good enough to see Legacy play, Looting will very quickly work its way through your deck to find what you need. Getting the most out of the spell does take some practice - as much as possible, you want to avoid paying the upfront cost too often - I know above we stressed that card advantage is not super important for this deck, but you still shouldnt be willingly discarding for no benefit. You will want to start holding lands after your 3rd to discard. Always discard additional copies of redundant cards first (extra stormkirk nobles and lavamancers, shrines of burning rage etc). This card is grim lavamancer's best friend.
Reforge the Soul. Has not turned out to be the powerhouse that we had hoped. Like the other miracles, it is simply too clunky when starting your hand, or drawn into with any of the other spells. While obviously very powerful against slow decks, the format is so aggressive that tapping out to refuel your opponent will often see them out you in an unwinnable position as soon as you pass priority. Do try it and let us know what your experiences were like.
Wild Guess. Red's Divination. Very similar to Dangerous Wager, both in cost and in practice. Zemanjaski and Aesnath found it to be very clunky in practice. If your deck is more heavily focussed on miracles, it is likely a good option.
Gitaxian Probe. For the smallest of costs, this cantrip lets you see your opponent's grip. If you're a fan of accumulating small advantages and grinding out games that end with a flurry of burn spells at the end, this might be the card for you. It has a small smoothing effect, which is nice, but it lets you sequence your plays with maximum effectiveness. Zemanjaski in particular has found that it helps a lot against UW Delver.
A good mana base is the foundation of any successful deck. Depending on how you construct your mana curve, you will want between 19 and 21 lands. Don't hesitate to ask for help with your manabase, there is no easier way to throw games away than to have a poor one. See the example lists below for ideas. We have experimented with different splashes and effects, so I will try and explain the advantages of the different options below:
Copperline Gorge // Rootbound Crag. For the green splash, which means you want to sideboard Ancient Grudge, as there isnt really any other reason to play this colour. I do feel that the splash is worth it for Ancient Grudge alone, but it is very much a personal choice. Because the deck is so many hungry early on, I prefer Copperline Gorge so that the first 3 land drops will always come into play untapped. Relying on Rootbound Crag runs the risk of only having them in your opening hand and needing to mulligan. Because the deck mulligans SO VERY POORLY, you really need to avoid this possibility. At the moment, I am running 21 land (4 copperline gorge, 16 mountain, 1 rootbound crag) and have found that to be a reliable and flexible mana base.
Ghost Quarter. Sometimes the format requires for interactivity with powerful spell-lands. There are a lot of powerful lands from Innistrad Block and if you feel that you need the option, Ghost Quarter can let you destroy them. Might be worth considering against Glimmerpost out of a Wolf Run Ramp deck.
Hellion Crucible. A new manland from M13. If you find yourself flooding out and needed a way to spend mana, the Crucible is worth consideration as a 1 or 2 of.
Kessig Wolf Run. Amazing in creature heavy decks, more of a liability in a deck that is only running creatures that are basically burn spells. Worth considering as a way to alleviate mana flood.
Stensia Bloodhall. Very expensive, but quite an effective finisher in grindy matches. Plays very well with flashbacked bump in the night obviously. If your deck has a more robust mana base and the black splash, having even a single copy is a nice way to close out games.
Sulfur Falls. For the blue splash. There isnt good enough mana fixing to really support a blue splash at the moment, but if you want to try desperate ravings, this is the way to do it.
A great difficulty with playing aggressive decks is sideboarding well. It is very easy to dilute your deck and fill it with too many reactive cards. Remember that you need to draw 7-8 action spells to kill your opponent in a timely fashion - siding out 'action' spells for reactive cards is going to slow your draw. Generally, you should avoid this, even if sideboarding into a lite-control deck.
I like to sideboard out creatures when they won't be effective. For example, agains the Mono Green Infect decks, Vexing Devil doesnt interact with them at all, so it is a fairly weak card. You need cards that can kill their creatures, or clock them. In this regard, Stromkirk Noble and Grim Lavamancer are better. Against control however, Grim Lavamancer can be very slow, and is vulnerable to their spot removal and sweepers - so I take a few copies of him out. On the draw against RG Aggro or Zombies, both of which have lots of blockers and are very quick, Stromkirk Noble is a poor choice. It can be beneficial to take your time and really think through what choices you want to make. It took me a long while to realise that against Esper Control, I didnt want to be sideboarding out arc trail for whipflare - sure, whipflare kills souls, but arc trail can burn the face or get attacks through. Whipflare is best when I want to control, and I am not going to out control the control deck.
Red Cards
Smelt. Cheap, effective artifact removal. With Swords and Trading Post so prevalent in the metagame, some sort of artifact removal is essential.
Manabarbs. Very powerful against control decks and ramp decks. In these matchups, your own life total is largely irrelevant, so you just want to be able to punish them severely for trying to play threats. Highly recommened.
Slagstorm. A powerful sweeper. While whipflare is generally sufficient, sometimes you need to kill bigger creatures. Good against WB Tokens and monogreen infect (doesn't trigger Wild Defiance and can hit their artifact creatures)
Red Sun's Zenith. Not an amazing card, largely made irrelevant by Pillar of Flame now. However, if you're playing a lot of zombies and having trouble with them, it is an additional exile effect worth considering.
'Threaten' effects (Traitorous Blood/Mark of Mutiny/Act of Treason/Act of Aggression). A very powerful effect against the Titan decks that I am a huge fan of. Especially nasty if they are using it to stabalize. Traitorous Blood is typically a little more versatile than Act of Treason or Mark of Mutiny. Act of Aggression is a heavy life investment, but allows for some really powerful plays (remember that it is an instant).
Whipflare. The cornerstone of sideboarding into the lite-control deck; very powerful against weenie decks and very important for fighting Gesit of st Traft.
Nihil Spellbomb. Very powerful against Delver decks with pikes (so, nearly all of them) and control decks, as well as anything trying to reanimate. Because you can pay the sacrifice cost, it effectively cycles as well.
Surgical Extraction. More targeted graveyard hate. Can remove key cards from your opponent's deck. Worth considering even without the black splash.
Curse of Death's Hold. While I have no experience with this card in this sort of deck, if you are taking the sideboarding into a lite-control deck plan very seriously, this is a powerful option to lock down the board.
Green Cards
Torpor Orb very powerful against the Pod decks that are so reliant on 'enters the battlefield' effects. If these decks continue to become more popular, this will be worth some sideboard slots
Articles
The most important article on playing this sort of deck you will ever read. Read it. Read it again. This will help you make effective decisions in difficult positions.
Whos the Beatdown? - Mike Flores
Missasignment of role = Game Loss
Eight Core Principles of Who's the Beatdown - Mike Flores
The follow up to the original classic, updated with modern examples.
Sullivan Library: Reach - Adrian Sullivan
Explains the important of using your 'reach'.
Sullivan Library: Distinctions in Strategic Archetypes - Adrian Sullivan
Ever wanted to know how good players understand when to change gears? Ever unsure what your role or path to victory is? Read this.
Sullivan Library: How To Make a Good Red Deck In Standard - Adrian Sullivan
How do you build a good Red Deck anyway?
Sullivan Library: Tailoring a Mono Red Deck - Adrian Sullivan
The devil is in the details.
Watch the Red Mage in action. In particular, look watch how patient Patrick is when playing around countermagic.
SCG New Jersey 2011 Semi Final: Patrick Sullivan vs AJ Sacher
Burn spells > broken UW Cards.
So, we know that we don't want to mulligan if we don't have to. So what do we keep? While this can differ significantly between different matchups and whether you are on the play or draw, to begin, lets start with the best case scenario, we're on the play and our hand is: a stormkirk noble, a shrine of burning rage, two or three land and two or three other spells (creatures or burn). This hand can develop naturally, landing two big threats that threaten to win the game by themselves right away. Having something to do for at least the first three turns means you have a few draw steps to draw into more action. Ideally, you will play out threats for the first three turns, hit your third land drop and then just sit back on the shrine, burning the opponent on their endstep as necessary (to avoid sorcery speed removal for the shrine). Hands like this are an easy keep.
Also playable are the hands with a Stormkirk Noble or Grim Lavamancer (or both) and a mix of spells and land. This hand is only slightly worse than above, but will need to draw decently to really apply pressure. In particular, the grim lavamancer is going to want you to start burning ASAP so he can be activated and not just a less cool Mon's Goblin Raiders. The mutliple lavamancer hand is probably still playable, but you will want there to be plenty of burn in your hand so you can get them active.
One of the hands that is most challenging to play is the 'burn hand'. It will be a mix of a few lands and all spells, maybe a vexing devil or two, and no shrine. Unlike the previous hands, where you have a consistent source of damage, and in many cases inevitability, here you are going to have to rely entirely on drawing more spells to win. These are not the most fun matches to play, but you do need to keep hands like this. In particular, you should lean towards keeping when you have multiples of arc trail or vexing devil - arc trail because it can simultaneously control their board and lower their life, vexing devil because it does so much damage when played early - you will always want to play your devils on turn 1 and 2 with this type of hand to maximise the chance they just take the damage, you can finish them off with burn once they're ready to deal with more devils. If the hand is mostly pillar of flame about half land, you should probably mulligan.
What I hope these hands demonstrate is that you need a clear path to victory - if you had to, you should be able to explain to someone why how that hand would win. In the first example, my plan would be to play noble into shrine. Either of those threats can quite quickly end the game by themselves. By the time my opponent is able to stabalize or start playing out pressure themselves, I will have a hand stocked with burn and enough land to play draw go. The second hand will try and do the same, although it will obviously be slower. The third hand requires real forethought - you need to be able to accurately assuage how quickly you can unload your hand and how much damage you REALLY have to get them with - sometimes killing their creatures is correct as it will let you have more drawsteps. This is typically true of both arc trail and pillar of flame. You can see why the third hand is weaker just by appreciating the explanation you would have to give another, 'my path to victory is to use the 12 points of burn in my hand, then hopefully draw another 8 points, sometimes between now and the time they kill me'. Hands without consistent sources of damage are always going to be weaker than hands with consistent sources of damage, but you do need to make do.
So when to mulligan? There are no hard rules, but typically you don't want to keep hands with only 1 land or more than 4; the first hand is too incosistent and prone to 'choking' on its mana - you are typically going to need to cast 2 or more spells in a turn and this hand needs to draw a lot of land to unload all of its spells fast enough. The second hand probably does not have enough fuel to get the job done - though I would consider keeping Stromkirk Noble + Shrine of Burning Rage and 5 land; you at least have some early plays to buy you time to draw into more action. Grim Lavamancer and almost all land is pointless; the lavamancer needs fuel. Vexing Devil is even worse - he is only worth it when you can apply pressure and the 4 damage is relevant; if your hand is too slow you are often just throwing away a card.
Whether or not to keep a 1 land hand on the draw is a matter of personal preference (risk adversity really), but you need to consider the hand you have:
- how many 1 mana plays do you have? You might be on one land for a while, so having multiple creatures to play can help. If you only have one creature, you should strongly consider a mulligan.
- what is the highest mana cost in your hand? Versions of the deck I run have the highest cost at 2; so even drawing 1 land will let me cast every spell in my deck.
- what do you know about your opponent's deck? Some decks are slower and cannot punish a slower draw from yourself as heavily.
I run 21 land in my deck, which is towards the higher end for this sort of deck. I also have 3 gitaxian probe and 12 1-drop creatures. The highest cost in my deck is 2; as such I am very prone to keeping 1 land hands on the draw and even sometimes on the play if the hand is aggressive enough and the matchup calls for it. Only experience will really help you understand when a hand has enough action to win.
While the Standard metagame changes heavily with every new set, one of the advantages of playing burn is that while your opponent's can come and go, the way you play gainst the major archetypes is largely the same. As a result, I have broken the strategic elements down by archetype, then by deck type:
Aggro-Control (UW Delver, Mono Blue Delver, Mono Blue Wizards). The most dominant decks in the format currently, these fish decks have historically been our natural prey. Unfortunately, WotC decided that Blue Mages needed even more advantages and printed Geist of St Traft - a hexproof beater that our deck is very poorly positioned against Game 1. Often Game 1 will be determined by whether or not they have the early Geist; if they don't they are in a lot of trouble, if they do, you are. Stromkirk Noble and Shrine are still a beating if you can land them, while pillar of flame and arc trail do good work against Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage. Grim Lavamancer can do a lot of work if they don;t have gut shot. Basically, you need to establish a clock and keep their threats off the board as much as possible - something this deck is well equipped to do. If you can keep them on the backfoot they are in real trouble, because Geist is awful in defence. Post board, I like to take out the Stromkirk Noble, due to their weakness to Vapor Snag and the incoming celestial purge. Whipflare can deal with Geist, Combust with Restoration Angel. You absolutely need artifact removal for their equipment. Basically, you will want to land a threat, protect against Geist and as best you can, play around divine offering, timely reinforcements and any line of play that allows them to play and equip a sword of war and peace then hit you with it - do not allow that!
The Mono Blue version is even weaker to whipflare and more reliant on equipment - the deck offers basically no clock at all without their Runechanter's pikes. They also don't have access to celestial purge, timely reinforcements, Geist of St Traft or divine offering...yeah, the Mono Blue version might be excellent against in the Delver mirror, but it is terrible against us. The Talrand version in particular is poorly positioned - a 4 mana 2/2 is not a big threat to a burn deck.
These decks are very powerful, very consistent and very rewarding of skilled play. You will need to rise to the occasion. Versions with the Geist of St Traft are slightly favourable, versions without are very favourable.
Wolf Run Ramp. This is a weird matchup, almost entirely dependant on how much you want to beat them and how much they want to beat you. Game 1 they are unlikely to be able to beat a Shrine or a Noble with multiple devils draw. If you really want to win, torpor orb and threaten effects are a huge game here, shutting off a lot of the effects they desperately need to stabalize. Hitting them with an inferno titan after they think they have stabalized is often fatal. At the same time, they might have a board full of sweepers, Thragtusk and other lifegain. Alternatively, they might be configured to win the mirror or beat control, in which case the matchup gets a lot easier. Game 1 you just want to and a shrine and hit them as hard as possible as quickly as possible. Post board, the matchup can be very difficult; they will likely have access to a plethora of lifegain and sweepers, as well as artifact removal for your shrine. The quality of your respective draws is very important - it might be worth mulliganing aggressively to find the right threats. If you really want to win this matchup, a full playset of threatens, a torpor orb and manabarbs will go a long way. This matchup can be very unfavourable to very favourable, depending how their deck is built.
Control. There are so many variants of control these days, it is difficult to cover them all. They will all try to stop your threats from putting any pressure on and to maintain their life total. Traditionally, they will try to stabalize under 10 life, using their life as a buffer to generate card advantage. This works against most aggressive decks because they lack serious burn - we do not, so they are never safe. Some are classical (UB / UW or Esper) while others are mono-coloured and typically based around trading post. Game 1 you just want shrine of burning rage - decks without white will typically just lose to that as long as you can back it up. You just need to be patient, play out your threats slowly and make sure to keep shrine mana available (if they are in colours that can kill it). Don't overextend into sweepers, play around countermagic as much as possible (or play into it to force them to tap out so you can punish them in your turn). At some point, they will need to sweep the board, which lets you resolve something or burn them; alternatively they will try to tap out for an arbitrary fatty, letting you often burn them to death. Post sideboard, depending on their build and colours, you may want threaten effects (they use big creatures) or artifact removal (they use lifegain / trading post) and probably manabarbs or Koth of the Hammer. Take out your lowest impact removal (probably Arc Trail). These matchups are very favourable.
Infect. Comes in a few varieties. Mono Black is a very hard match, because Phyrexian Crusader has pro. red. If you have dismember in the board, you have a chance. The deck is not popular, so I have no outs to this version in my board. Much more common is Mono Green Infect or UG Infect, built around Rancor and Wild Defiance. Our deck should just roll over these decks. They have a very low creature count, rely heavily on phyrexian mana and mulligan even worse than we do - they are much more pure combo, whereas we can just land a shrine or stormkirk noble. Game 1, all you want to do is land a Noble or Shrine to start a clock, then use a lavamancer and/or burn to kill their threats. Note that a lavamancer or a shrine of burning rage will not trigger wild defiance. IIf they are tapped low, ALWAYS play your burn spells on their turn to kill their creatures - they are going to use up their apostle's blessing and mutagenic growth on our turn, where it cannot add to the poison total that way. If they are untapped, wait until their attack step and just wait to see what they do - it is a game of cat and mouse, where you can wait. If you do nothing, they will typically no cast a pump spell. If they do, burn their creature in response. Try to do the same when they attempt to equip rancor. You just need to be patient and get the cards out of their hand. Their deck typically only has 8-12 creatures plus inkmoth nexus, so you can conceivably kill everything they draw and strand spells in their hand. A single noble or shrine is typically sufficient to win game 1 as long as you're patient. Post sideboard, you want dismember, effects like whipflare (no targeting) and ancient grudge - it kills inkmoth nexus and ichorclaw myr and no amount of titanic growth or mutagenic growth will save it. They also commonly bring in spellskite, and grudge is a very easy solution. The MonoBlack version is highly unfavourable (depending on their draw), then MonoGreen and UG versions are extremely favourable.
Midrange (Pod or no Pod; Naya or Bant). These decks can be a real problem. They have access to lifegain and creatures that can block noble. They are often a bit weak to arc trail killing all of their early dorks. Bant in particular can be a nightmare when they have phantasmal image copying thragtusk. Just do your best to keep them on the back foot, apply consistent pressure and hope they stumble on mana. Unfortunately, things get worse post board when they bring in artifact removal, celestial purge and more lifegain. Drowning has experimented with Torpor Orb to a lot of sucess (makes sense) and that is something I will try soon. Arc Trail and even Flames of the Firebrand can be a big game against this sort of deck. The Naya matchup is about even, the Bant matchup is slightly unfavourable.
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Vexing Devil
4 Arc Trail
1 Faithless Looting
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Thunderbolt
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
4 Copperline Gorge
16 Mountain
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Combust
1 Flames of the Firebrand
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Manabarbs
1 Slagstorm
2 Traitorous Blood
3 Whipflare
This was the first version of the latest deck that I have been running. It was heavily based on a similar deck posted by Aesnath, so credit to him. The deck has the best 12 creatures, 20 powerful burn spells and a solid mana base. Gitaxian Probe has been a bit of an experiment that I am happy with; knowing the contents of my opponent's hand has let me play around a great many troublesome situations. The minor deck thinning and improve reliability are nice as well. The sideboard is aimed at beating Delver, with the options of sideboarding into control against some of the format's aggro decks.
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Vexing Devil
4 Arc Trail
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Thunderbolt
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Rootbound Crag
15 Mountain
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Combust
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Manabarbs
1 Slagstorm
3 Traitorous Blood
3 Whipflare
No huge changes here, but the list is a little more refined. I want the extra land, to help deal with the 'mana choke'. The sideboard changes reflect what i have been facing a lot of online.
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Vexing Devil
3 Arc Trail
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Thunderbolt
2 Thunderous Wrath
3 Ghost Quarter
18 Mountain
1 Act of Treason
2 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Dismember
2 Manabarbs
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Torch Fiend
2 Traitorous Blood
1 Wrack with Madness
A similar deck with bigger creatures, but no green splash. Torch Fiend is a powerful sideboard option, able to keep swords off the field and still beatdown. Bonfire can be a blowout against unsuspecting decks. Metamorph is good against both legends and titans. A great deck choice if you want the opportunity to out play your opponent.
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Hellrider
4 Vexing Devil
4 Faithless Looting
4 Pillar of Flame
3 Arc Trail
4 Searing Spear
4 Thunderbolt
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
19 Mountain
2 Act of Aggression
1 Blasphemous Act
3 Galvanic Blast
2 Manabarbs
4 Smelt
2 Torpor Orb
A very aggressive deck with bigger creatures. You will need to carefully plan your turns to get the most out of the synergy between faithless looting and additional copies of itself, as well as Chandra's Phoenix. Knowing what to keep and what to discard is essential - but your lavamancers will be very powerful indeed! This version can draw a little worse and still hit hard thanks to the consistency from looting and the more robust creature base. The sideboard is well equipped to deal with the current metagame.
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Round 1 - 5 Colour Control
He goes first and leads with island ponder, then ponder again and evolving wilds. I have stormkirk noble then grim lavamancer, passing with shock up. Without having seen him crack, I think he is esper control or esper spirits. I wear him down a little, he cracks for plains then plays glacial fortress. I hit him a little more and he wraths. I loot through my deck, play a lavamancer which he 187s with Chandra the firebrand off of a sulfur falls. Lame. I unload my hand on Chandra, then reload with dangerous wager, but he has another Chandra to keep my x/1s off the board. I dig again and find a shrine, but I am not able to deal with 6 spirit tokens followed by a rite of ruin, leaving me with 2 land.
Sideboarding: +2 ratchet bomb, +2 grafdigger's cage, +1 kessig wolf run, +1 koth, +2 whipflare. -2 ancient grudge, -4 pillar of flame, -2 galvanic blast.
I start with noble into shrine, followed by Grim lavamancer. He has some ponder and some land, before temporal mastery leads to Chandra killing the lavamancer before I can activate it. However, an incinerate followed by an arc trail (targeting him for 2, me for 1) and another hit from the stomkirk noble leave him at 5 with a shrine on 6.
Sideboarding: None
game 3 starts with more land and ponder, while I have noble into thunderous wrath and another noble. not at all a slow start. Then things get weird. He has sphere of the suns into day of judgment into two solemn simulacrum, and with that, im basically toast. I find a shrine, and it looks like I can race him, but another rite of ruin forces me to sacrifice it.
Pretty upsetting, he had some weird cards in game 3 that I hadn't seen early and didnt expect to be in his deck. I would have sideboarded differently had I known, such that I wouldnt have ben blown out (hopefully).
Result: 1-2
Round 2 - RUG Delver
I lead with noble, which immediately meets a pillar of flame. Sad. I have fireslinger and another mountain, looting to discard extra land and keep a hand of shock, pillar of flame x 3. Sometimes you have to set the world on fire. Snapcaster mage flashes back pillar of flame on my fireslinger, who pings him for one and dies to shock in return. Huntmaster of the fells is the follow up. He eats a pillar and there is a race between his wolf and me finding threats. Daybreak ranger and another snapcaster eat removal, but his 1-of maindeck consecrated sphinx seals it.
Sideboarding: -2 ancient grudge, -2 fireslinger, -2 pillar of flame, +2 whipflare, +1 kessig wolf run, +1 koth of the hammer, +2 traitorous blood
I keep a hand without a one drop (I only have 8 creatures now), but I have turn two shrine, turn 4 koth available, with some removal. I resolve exactly that and Koth starts going to town. Huntmaster and wolf get whipflarred, and my hand is all instant burn and I have enough of it to protect Koth for a while. He kills Koth with incinerate, snapcaster flashing back incinerate, but Snapcaster cannot block Stromkirk Noble who deals enough damage to make the shrine lethal.
Sideboarding: +2 goblin fireslinger, -2 traitorous blood
I keep a lose hand of two land, shrine, all removal, after he goes to 6. I figure that I am actually playing a control role, and the extra cards will help make up for the card draw deficit. Having two arc trails in hand was also a factor. I loot on turn two, finding Koth. He plays a third land and passes with mana leak open. I play stromkirk noble, which gets leaked, allowed me to resolve shrine. He misses a land drop so ponders and leaves his mana open. I pass without playing my fourth land. He taps out for garruk, I shock the wolf and resolve Koth, killing Garruk. Another Garruk leads to the same play, then I resolve a fireslinger and a lavamancer. He has to unload his whole hand and flashback a snacaster to kill Koth on 5 loyalty (pillar, pillar, flashback pillar). The combination of shrine, lavamancer and fireslinger finish him off.
Result: 2-1
Round 3 - BR Zombies
he opens with diregraf ghoul and I immediately regret my keep of four land, pillar, galvanic, Lavamancer. I play a land, but hold the Lavamancer, shocking his diregraf ghoul on his attack step. He plays a mortarpod and passes. Frowny face. I play out a shrine, then he plays two gravecrawlers. I put down the Lavamancer and a Stromkirk Noble, then pillar of flame a gravecrawler. He kills it in response with the trigger from mortarpod. This feels like a mistake, while it saves the gravecrawler, it costs him time dealing with my lavamancer, since his next turn is just to replay the crawler, equip it with mortarpod and kill the lava wizard - effectively timewalking himself to save a card. We trade some blows before a geth's verdict kills my noble. Meanwhile, he replays gravecrawler, puts down a highborn ghoul and I am burning through my deck, collecting burn. He sacrifices a gravecrawler to mortarpod then brimstone volleys me, putting me within lethal next turn, no matter what. He is on 15 life, I have 13 counters on my shrine. I burn him then crack the shrine and we're on to game 2!
Sideboarding: -4 goblin fireslinger, +2 whipflare, +2 grafdigger's cage
I keep a hand of shrine, whipflare, galvanic blast, looting, incinerate and two land. Amazing against any non-gravecrawler opening, but that is what he has. He follows it up with Highborn ghoul, but whipflare sends them to the sin-bin. He plays another highborn ghoul, but stumbles on land and cannot resolve the gravecrawler. I play the shrine and shock the ghoul, but he has another gravecrawler from his hand next turn, followed by the one from the graveyard. I cast looting and flash it back, looking for an answer, while the shrine keeps ticking up. I find arc trail and lavamancer, wiping his board and playing down the wizard. Pillar of flame exiles the messenger, forcing him to brimstone volley the lavamancer, who burns him in response. Another lavamancer meant I could burn threats as he played them. A manic vandal was a brief worry, but I had the mana to activate the shrine in response. Two more hits from the lavamancer sealed it.
Result: 2-0
Evaluation: Im happy with how the deck is playing pre- and post-board. I probably want another Koth, he is just a nightmare for control decks to deal with. Sideboarding into a pseudo-control deck against aggro and midrange has been working well, although the exact numbers need work, I might want an extra whipflare. Good to get some games in against more solid competition.
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4 Vexing Devil
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 stormblood Berserker
4 chandra's phoenix
4 hellrider
4 Incenerate
4 Shock
2 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Brimstone Volley
2 Shrine of Burning Rage
2 Thunderous Wrath
1 Chandra, the Firebrand
2 Red Sun's Zenith
I personally think that Noble are one of the best one drops in magic however I havent gotten my hands on any yet. Your deck seems to have a great build, but I would have to recommend putting in Vexing Devil. It's essentially a 1 mana 4 damage burn spell. I know that it loses your board advantage, but you don't need this in a burn deck. My sideboard varies from day to day, but I usually run Grafdigger's cage and some arctrails (replace stormblood). IMO I would have to recomend Hellrider as well since he is a burn spell within a 3/3. I have no idea why I don't run faithless looting and i plan on doing so when I find them -_-.
Last FNM performance:
2-0 RU Delver
2-1 MiRUcle
2-0 Solar Flare(Shrine one both games for me haha)
Overall I am very pleased with the deck, but it does need tweaking. The Solar Flare game was luck, but I simply played against some proto decks in my first two matches.
I would really like to run your deck this friday and see how it does compared to mine. If I do I will let you know the results.
I don't think I can make the devil work without brimstone volley and that would involve changing the deck too much
I hope you like it - tap out as little as possible!
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I've been looking for a direction to take my red deck in, and this looks like it might be the way. I'll start tweaking my deck this week, and hopefully get a chance to play it on Friday.
Big thanks to Rivenor for the sig!
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There is also Devil's Play and Past in Flames.
Atrius' Posts 1W
Instant
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"Wait, can you actually win a thread?" - Atrius.
As to the topic on the thread: I love it. A friend of mine stomps me all the time with an aggro burn deck similar to this (minus 2 Grim Lavamancer and 4 Vexing Devil with Goblin Arsonists and Goblin Grenades in their stead).
Standard: GW Selesnya Aggro, GWB Voice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWB Unblockable Auras, UG Defenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
Working on putting my decks here for testplaying: http://tappedout.net/users/drunk231/
I felt when building the deck that geistflame was too low impact. I have often just needed to burn them out from 7-10 life, and the point of damage difference immediately can be quite relevant. I usually don't want to flash back geistflame for 4 anyway - I almost never make it there!
I think similar problems arise with devil's play and past in flames. They're certainly great spells, but in a deck that is only running 19 land and typically won't go above 2 for most of the game, they are a little unwieldy.
I do feel there is potential in bonfire of the damned, but if I cannot miracle it, its basically uncastable.
One thing I have been thinking about is going RU, splashing blue instead of green for desperate ravings instead of faithless looting. Its a little pricier initially, and it is random discard (so you can't just always activate it), but it is card advantage after the second casting and digs just as deep. This would really cause problems with the ancient grudges however - although M13 is offering a new artifact removal spell (R - destroy target artifact). Nonethless, I feel the flashback is very important, and probably puts grudge slightly ahead.
I will be swapping out thunderous wrath for the new incinerate-lite spell. 3 copies of wrath and 1 looting will become 4 of the new spell - mostly for consistency reasons.
EDIT: drunk231 - How many grenades is he running off of only 8 goblins? What does his burn suite look like? Thanks for dropping by!
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4 Goblin Fireslinger
4 Goblin Arsonist
2 Stormblood Berserker
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Goblin Grenade
4 Pillar of Flame
Planeswalker (1):
1 Chandra, the Firebrand
Instants (19):
4 Shock
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Reverberate
4 Incinerate
3 Thunderbolt
20 Mountain
We're currently working on getting 4 Chandra's Phoenix 2 Grim Lavamancer 4 Stormkirk Noble 4 Vexing Devil and maybe a Koth or two (or another Chandra), but he seems to be liking the mostly burn spells for the time being. He seems to pull a turn 3 Goblin Grenade/Reverberate for a quick 10 damage quite a bit, and if not gets me down to 10-12 by turns 4/5.
At FNM, he went 2-4 (and got a bye round 3) in 3 rounds. He lost to WB spirits 0-2 (and won the third game for fun to pass time between rounds) and lost 0-2 Heartless Lich round 2. Round 1 he was overrun with Lingering Souls and his opponent kept gaining life back too fast. Round 2 was against my deck from the Heartless Summoning variants page.
Obviously first cut will be Galvanic Blast, as he has 0 artifacts, but works as though he's running 8 Shocks though so lots of 1 drop burn. Thinking -4 Galvanic Blast +2 Arc Trail +2 Rolling Tremblor.
EDIT:
Also, the Thunderbolts will be moving to the sideboard and we will be looking for Shrines. He just started playing so most of his cards are all Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored, and he actually traded me for the deck and added Chandra.
Standard: GW Selesnya Aggro, GWB Voice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWB Unblockable Auras, UG Defenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
Working on putting my decks here for testplaying: http://tappedout.net/users/drunk231/
For the spirits matchup I am currently using the ratchet bombs and whipflare (cheaper than temblor). Bombs for their anthems, flare for everything else. I side out the nobles to make space (since they can be blocked, whereas firelsinger and lavamancer cannot).
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Basic Recap of changes from my decklist posted:
-3 Thunderbolt
-4 Galvanic Blast
+4 Stormkirk Noble
+2 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Chandra's Phoenix or Stormblood Berserker.
EDIT:
Forgot to post the SB we're working on.
4 Shatter
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Circle of Flame
2 Combust
3 Thunderbolt
Standard: GW Selesnya Aggro, GWB Voice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWB Unblockable Auras, UG Defenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
Working on putting my decks here for testplaying: http://tappedout.net/users/drunk231/
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
Standard: GW Selesnya Aggro, GWB Voice of Servitude, R Stuffy Reckoning, UWB Unblockable Auras, UG Defenders of the Combo
Extended: G Cheat-a-Colossus Elves,BRU Infinite Heartless,R Infect, R 'Helldrazi' (Hellions/Eldrazi Tokens)
Legacy: R Goblinstorm, UR Artifacts, R Artifacts, BURWG Land Deck, etc.
Commander: BRWUGSliver Overlord, BR Tsabo Tavoc
Working on putting my decks here for testplaying: http://tappedout.net/users/drunk231/
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
this is true.
I did try reforge the soul, but eventually went with dangerous wager. Reforge is very powerful, but the randomness of when you draw it really hurts. There is a bit of tension with basically using up all your mana, even at miracle cost.
But when it works....wow! It does win games. I might very well go back to using it, especially if I get rid of thunderous wrath for searing spear. Less dead draws that way.
In other news, one exam down yesterday, one on Friday, then next Thursday. I'll have another couple of games then, hopefully with some video if anyone can recommend some software.
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Match 1 - UG Mill
Yeah, a mill deck. I have to mull on the draw (hands with no land do happen with this deck), but I have a hand full of action. He opens with dreamtwist. The jigg is up I guess. I have noble into lavamancer and fireslinger, while he durdles and plays curse of the blood tome. Turns out getting milled gives you lots of lavamancer fuel. I killed him on turn 5 with a handful of burn.
Sideboarding: -2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Kessig Wolf Run, +1 Koth of the Hammer
He has a slow start, while I have fireslinger, although my lavamancerer gets mana leaked. Another fireslinger hits the field, but he follows up with invisible stalker and sword of body and mind. A miracled thunderous wrath puts him to 11; with a hand of incinerate, shock and two arc trails, I finish him quickly.
Result: 2-0
Match 2 - Naya Humans
If you don't know, stromkirk noble and arc trail are very good against humans. My opener had two of each. He concedes after turn 4 with all of his early creatures getting torched and me having a 4/4 and 3/3 nobles, with two fiend hunters in hand but no white mana.
Sideboarding: -3 thunderous wrath, -2 pillar of flame, +2 whipflare, +3 combust
I had a slow hand, looting turn 1 into turn 2 shrine. He had thalia, then a fiend hunter for my grim lavamancer. Hero of Bladehold soon followed, and I was flooding to 5 land, unable to find burn to remove Thalia.
I played a lavamancer and cracked the shrine to kill Hero. I hate doing that. Garruk killed my lavamancer, but the fireslinger and shock killed him. I found another lavamancer, but he started to flood the field with champion of lambholt and accorder paladin. That lavamancer was going to have to work overtime. A topdecked combust killed the fiend hunter, and over the following turns the lavamancer pair killed all his creatures. He had a champion of the parish, than thalia and another champion of lambholt. All died. A shrine of burning rage after flashing back looting would end the game if he couldnt find a hero (I was very low on lavamancer fuel). He did, but an incinerate to the dome, a lavamancer ping on the hero and a whipflare to wipe the board left him at 10 and the shrine at 8. He passed the turn, I passed back. He peaked at the top of his deck and extended his hand.
Result 2-0
Match 3 - Mono Blue Grand Architect
This is a really good matchup for this deck. I opened with noble into lavamancer. He had some land and some ponders. A dismember killed my noble and I resolved a shrine. A snapcaster flashedback the dismember on the lavamancer, who triggered to kill him in response. He was on 5 mana, so it was a race to tick the shrine up as quickly as possible. I arc trailed us both, then played another noble and lavamancer. He was on 12, played out the wurmcoil. Shrine was on 7; I had stromkirk noble, grim lavamancer and then a govblin fireslinger. I started by blocking with and killing my own noble. Then I sacrified the fireslinger. Finally, I untapped, pinged him with the lavamancer and cracked the shrine.
Sideboarding: -4 pillar of flame, -1 arc trail, +1 kessig wolf run, +1 koth of the hammer, +1 ancient grudge, +2 traitorous blood
Game two was just ugly. He pondered twice in two turns, but couldnt find a third land. I had noble into noble and fireslinger, beating him down quickly. I had a traitorous blood in my opener, so I just emptied the rest of my hand to force him to play a wurmcoil on 6. Arc trail burned away the images he tried to play, and a snapcaster. He was able to remove both nobles, but the fireslinger kept doing damage. He played the wurmcoil, I revealed my hand and he scooped.
Result 2-0
Let me know how it is working for you guys. I think the sideboard needs some real work, and im considering shifting out the thunderous wraths - they're great, but they really hurt in your opener. The new searing spear is probably an easy swap, but it may be worth trying brimstone volley.
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2 Koth of the Hammer
3 Slagstorm
3 Traitorous Blood
2 Whipflare
3 Surgical Extraction
If use this deck tomorrow I'll post how it goes, I'm leaning towards UB Zombies though.
Big thanks to Rivenor for the sig!
Good against cards like Restoration Angel and at worst is still 3 damage vs a player.
I really hope they put Shrine or something like it in M13. I love playing Mono Red when I can and this card is so important to the deck currently.
Big thanks to Rivenor for the sig!
I can't argue with the extra sweepers - when you go into the transformational sideboard they are usually the first card I want.
Koth really is the hammer - I definitely need a second one.
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
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
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