What were you doing on 9-11? If you are from a different country than the US, how did your country handle the news?
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I was in second grade when I heard the news but as a second grader it really never “hit me”. I was told a lot of people died and that it was a sad event. I remember that my teacher, Mrs. Scott, was pulled out into the hallway, came back in crying and told us that we had a school meeting in the gym. We all went to our assigned sections, my friend Grant and I started to Thumb Wrestle and I remember noticing that not nearly as many teachers where in the gym as normal during the morning or school meetings. We stayed in there for what seemed like forever but eventually we went back to our classrooms and my dad picked me up as normal but he was crying. Later that night my dad told me that some people called Muslims attacked an important building and a bunch of people died. Later the largest crime task force since the assassination of JFK was assembled and later a man named Timothy McVey was arrested for blowing up the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Every year until I was a Junior in High School we held “160 pennies campaign” (for the 160 people that died) and visited the OKC memorial. Gradually I learned that the reason my school shook was because of the after blast from the bombing, that Muslims weren’t behind the bombing, what the word “terrorism” meant and eventually I learned that I had 4 friends who list close relatives in the bombing. It was something that I was constantly reminded of growing up. This was something that completely decimated my community, my friends and my state.
6 years later I was in 8th grade and heading to 2nd period—Mr. Schultz class. My Principal, Dr. Grant, got onto the telecom and told everyone to get to their classrooms. Mr. Shultz was crying, the science teacher across the hall was crying and the TV’s were on. I thought that there was another bombing of a federal building somewhere in the state (I was a little worried because my dad’s law firm was across from a federal building in Downtown Tulsa) but knew my dad was in Phoenix at his other office. Everyone was whispering trying to figure out what was going on and as Mr. Schultz turned on the TV to the news channel it was a picture of a plane hitting the second tower. There was a red banner that a plane has flown into one of the twin towers and my friend Hilary immediate started crying because her dad was in New York City. When everything was said and done we moved onto our 3rd period as quick as possible. I turned on my cell phone to only have 4 missed calls from my mom. I called her back and my dad’s flight was grounded because of what happened but she talked to him and he was safe.
This time it hit me though—seeing all the people on the TV crying, my teachers crying and all my friends’ parents crying as they picked up their kids. I went to youth group that night instead of heading home (my mom was a pastor). We prayed. A lot. And it might have been the only time that I think I actually *tried* to pray. For answers. For peace of mind—not just for me, but those affected by these jerks who hurt them. I also prayed that whoever did this either had good reason or for God to kick their ass because it was “unacceptable for this to happen twice in someone’s lifetime”.
A lot of my friends had extended family or family friends impacted by the 9-11 attacks. Some of them ended up never getting over it. I can’t blame them.
9-11 wasn’t something that shattered our sphere of safety in the US, it was something that reminded the youth of Oklahoma that the world is a really *****ty place at times and no matter how mundane your day seems absolutely true evil will come out of nowhere and wreck your sense of reality. No matter how much you think you are over an event, 8 years later it can happen again.
9-11 might not have destroyed my faith in god (Only parents can do that), but it restored my faith in humanity after seeing and reading what different states, continents and people where doing for America. I remember reading in a French magazine (I think it was French) about how “Today, we are all Americans”. Terrorism is designed and crafted to destroy friendships, communities and states. It was everyone’s reaction to it that proved they failed.
Thank you all (echofish, Lormador and ThePlum )! And now, what do you think about the new Goblinslide? Do you believe that it helps in long games?
Before we begin the discussion of "It is a 3cmc spell that taxes the rest of your spells for the rest of the game if you want utility from it" I want to remind everyone that a card for Burn must go through a few pretty tough standards:
1. If the card doesn't provide immediate damage to our opponent it must have a fantastic upside or provide a solution to a problem that we have to solve "now". For example, Rift Bolt doesn't provide immediate damage but is a turn delayed bolt, so it passes the test. Vortex stops life-gain and gives us inevitability in games we have no right in winning. It passes the test. REB/Pyroblast provide utility by allowing us to resolve our finishers against blue decks. Bridge prevents us from dying to...well, legacy creature bases.
Now with that in mind, what immediate impact or utility does this enchantment provide? It allows us to "cycle" spells into creatues (no clue if cycle is the proper term but I am using it). The ability is a solid 2.5 out of 5 on the usefulness scale by allowing us to churn out potential threats against UW(r) Miracles and chump 'Goyfs for days. The ability is very strong in limited, pretty good in standard and ok in legacy for us. I don't think it really passes the tests as even a sideboard card. Anything that answers Vortex answers this AND vortex is the stronger card in matchups we'd want this card in (debatable about RUG Delver I guess).
2. It add's mana taxing effects on a land lite deck. Sure, we might not be 11 mana crazy but we are 17-20 mana crazy. Not only is a nombo with Fire Blast (a stronger card), it makes hands really awkward that are land, bolt, bolt, bolt, vortex, guide, this.
+4 Deathrite Shaman
+3 Bump in the Night
+4 Tyrant's Choice
All of the MD anti-creature cards are gone. I like those cards. It may be worth it if the deck is consistently a turn faster: does it goldfish on turn 3 when you start with a Deathrite Shaman?
The mana question is only worth examining when that's out of the way.
Personally I doubt it's a good idea to splash. Wizards just gave us this hardcore 2 CMC red creature and the deck is taking down SCGs. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
I don’t believe we should be running more than 3 Mancer’s/Shaman’s anyway. It should be a 2/1 split between DRS and Lavamancer. DRS is smarter and would probably see more maindeck play if it cost [R] instead of [G/B] because it’s a 1 for 2 trade instead of a 2 for 2 trade (meaning number of cards you exile). The nice thing that Lavamancer has is that the exile is part of the cost versus resolution meaning you don’t lose graveyard battles. It’s something to keep in mind.
Price is getting worse in the meta right now as more and more decks are including basics to get around blood moon shenanigans.
We should be replacing/splitting between Forsaken Wastes and Vortex as Wastes is better in the battle of Abrupt Decay which is very good at getting rid of Vortex.
Finally, one of the biggest ticks in the deck is the synergy between Searing Blood, Searing Blaze and Eidolon of the Great Revel. We don’t want to remove those spells. I do think we can get away with only 3 EotGR though. Fireblast is also a 3 of, not 2 of. It’s our finisher for christ’s sakes.
It's not that the deck is Broken but WoTC is giving us so many amazing reason's to start testing splashing. If it wasn't for testing we would never find innovations. Do you know HOW many Burn players I've had to convince that EOTGR is a GOOD magic card since its printing? Same goes for Bump and Choice.
Just to be clear, RDW isn't a weak strategy. It's just not one that has had a lot of success in the current meta. It's also not something is being played alot right now.
Vexing Devil only works in RDW. It doesn't replace Figure of Destiny, it compliments it.. If you only run 11 creatures and 3 of them are Vexing Devil the only thing you are doing is weakening your entire creature lineup.
No idea of this is correct or not but I would assume that anyone who wants turn 2 plays on turn 1 are actually playing Spirit Guide instead of caverns.
I'm just x-posting this from the reddit thread about Figure:
That’s a great point. Mana/CMC Ratio makes Vexing Devil a very, very interesting (and tempting) choice.
I want to be very clear: punisher Cards are very, very bad cards when it comes to competitive magic. At the end of the day, leaving your opponent a choice is never going to be good. Vexing Devil has changed this around though. Traditionally with punisher cards you see two different options: either do this (sometimes Virtual) Card Advantage Thing -OR- Do this amount of damage. It never resolves as the option that matters for you: Dashed Hopes will never counter that spell, Barbarian Bully will never be a 4/4 when it needs to be, Lava Blister will never destroy Thespian Stage, Book Burning is never going to mill your opponent and Browbeat will always draw 3 cards when you need the damage or damage your opponent when you would need the cards.
Vexing Devil will, interesting enough, always deal 4 damage on the first turn of the game or eat a removal spell on turns 2+ (if they have it), right? Vexing Devil takes the punisher mechanic to a new level actually by giving the same thing in 2 different forms--we either get a 4/3 for R or we get to boros charm our opponent for R. Both those are extremely attractive in a vacuum. The problem is that he never flame rifts our opponent when he should. In order for us to maximize profits from Vexing Devil, we need to make sure that either choice our opponent makes, makes them lose. Also keep in mind that most decks are sideboarding 2-4 copies of Ensnaring Bridge making Vexing Devil really awkward games ⅔ sometimes.
One of things I talked about in a previous article was sequencing. When you run Vexing Devil you want to make sure you are doing everything possible to sequence your first couple of turns to maximize his damage output. That means playing him not turn 1 because your turn 1 play should be a creature that offers more repetitive damage. We want creatures that offer repetitive damage and playing him turn 1 means that we lose that because our opponent is always taking 4. On face value that’s not a bad deal; however, we should never start our game off with turn 1 Lava Spike and that sequencing really is just a glorified Lava Spike, no? On top of that, leading with Devil over one of our other 1 drops means that we are giving our other 1drop less turns to do damage.
The thing about Vexing Devil isn’t that he should replace creatures, it’s that he should compliment our 1 drop by making our turn 2 more explosive. Keeping other 1 drops in the deck substantially weaken removal to keep Vexing Devil in check since using removal on Devil means not using it on, say, FIgure of Destiny or Eidolon of the Great Reveal. That means we are forcing our opponent to let us keep our 4/3 for repeatable damage more often. That’s good!
That’s also bad because it means we are diluting our deck out of more valuable burn. Vexing Devil would probably remove our more conditional burn spells like Searing Blood/Blaze or our higher cmc spells like Fireblast or Vortex. The problem is that Searing Blaze is more powerful and important for us that Vexing Devil. Also, Fireblast and Vortex are just more powerful spells.
Hey folks! The next article in my series is up: Fetchland-less Burn. Read it, tweet it, share it. Give me feedback :). What would you like to see talked about next week?
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I was in second grade when I heard the news but as a second grader it really never “hit me”. I was told a lot of people died and that it was a sad event. I remember that my teacher, Mrs. Scott, was pulled out into the hallway, came back in crying and told us that we had a school meeting in the gym. We all went to our assigned sections, my friend Grant and I started to Thumb Wrestle and I remember noticing that not nearly as many teachers where in the gym as normal during the morning or school meetings. We stayed in there for what seemed like forever but eventually we went back to our classrooms and my dad picked me up as normal but he was crying. Later that night my dad told me that some people called Muslims attacked an important building and a bunch of people died. Later the largest crime task force since the assassination of JFK was assembled and later a man named Timothy McVey was arrested for blowing up the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Every year until I was a Junior in High School we held “160 pennies campaign” (for the 160 people that died) and visited the OKC memorial. Gradually I learned that the reason my school shook was because of the after blast from the bombing, that Muslims weren’t behind the bombing, what the word “terrorism” meant and eventually I learned that I had 4 friends who list close relatives in the bombing. It was something that I was constantly reminded of growing up. This was something that completely decimated my community, my friends and my state.
6 years later I was in 8th grade and heading to 2nd period—Mr. Schultz class. My Principal, Dr. Grant, got onto the telecom and told everyone to get to their classrooms. Mr. Shultz was crying, the science teacher across the hall was crying and the TV’s were on. I thought that there was another bombing of a federal building somewhere in the state (I was a little worried because my dad’s law firm was across from a federal building in Downtown Tulsa) but knew my dad was in Phoenix at his other office. Everyone was whispering trying to figure out what was going on and as Mr. Schultz turned on the TV to the news channel it was a picture of a plane hitting the second tower. There was a red banner that a plane has flown into one of the twin towers and my friend Hilary immediate started crying because her dad was in New York City. When everything was said and done we moved onto our 3rd period as quick as possible. I turned on my cell phone to only have 4 missed calls from my mom. I called her back and my dad’s flight was grounded because of what happened but she talked to him and he was safe.
This time it hit me though—seeing all the people on the TV crying, my teachers crying and all my friends’ parents crying as they picked up their kids. I went to youth group that night instead of heading home (my mom was a pastor). We prayed. A lot. And it might have been the only time that I think I actually *tried* to pray. For answers. For peace of mind—not just for me, but those affected by these jerks who hurt them. I also prayed that whoever did this either had good reason or for God to kick their ass because it was “unacceptable for this to happen twice in someone’s lifetime”.
A lot of my friends had extended family or family friends impacted by the 9-11 attacks. Some of them ended up never getting over it. I can’t blame them.
9-11 wasn’t something that shattered our sphere of safety in the US, it was something that reminded the youth of Oklahoma that the world is a really *****ty place at times and no matter how mundane your day seems absolutely true evil will come out of nowhere and wreck your sense of reality. No matter how much you think you are over an event, 8 years later it can happen again.
9-11 might not have destroyed my faith in god (Only parents can do that), but it restored my faith in humanity after seeing and reading what different states, continents and people where doing for America. I remember reading in a French magazine (I think it was French) about how “Today, we are all Americans”. Terrorism is designed and crafted to destroy friendships, communities and states. It was everyone’s reaction to it that proved they failed.
Before we begin the discussion of "It is a 3cmc spell that taxes the rest of your spells for the rest of the game if you want utility from it" I want to remind everyone that a card for Burn must go through a few pretty tough standards:
1. If the card doesn't provide immediate damage to our opponent it must have a fantastic upside or provide a solution to a problem that we have to solve "now". For example, Rift Bolt doesn't provide immediate damage but is a turn delayed bolt, so it passes the test. Vortex stops life-gain and gives us inevitability in games we have no right in winning. It passes the test. REB/Pyroblast provide utility by allowing us to resolve our finishers against blue decks. Bridge prevents us from dying to...well, legacy creature bases.
Now with that in mind, what immediate impact or utility does this enchantment provide? It allows us to "cycle" spells into creatues (no clue if cycle is the proper term but I am using it). The ability is a solid 2.5 out of 5 on the usefulness scale by allowing us to churn out potential threats against UW(r) Miracles and chump 'Goyfs for days. The ability is very strong in limited, pretty good in standard and ok in legacy for us. I don't think it really passes the tests as even a sideboard card. Anything that answers Vortex answers this AND vortex is the stronger card in matchups we'd want this card in (debatable about RUG Delver I guess).
2. It add's mana taxing effects on a land lite deck. Sure, we might not be 11 mana crazy but we are 17-20 mana crazy. Not only is a nombo with Fire Blast (a stronger card), it makes hands really awkward that are land, bolt, bolt, bolt, vortex, guide, this.
3. It's just not powerful enough.
Hope that answers the question.
I don’t believe we should be running more than 3 Mancer’s/Shaman’s anyway. It should be a 2/1 split between DRS and Lavamancer. DRS is smarter and would probably see more maindeck play if it cost [R] instead of [G/B] because it’s a 1 for 2 trade instead of a 2 for 2 trade (meaning number of cards you exile). The nice thing that Lavamancer has is that the exile is part of the cost versus resolution meaning you don’t lose graveyard battles. It’s something to keep in mind.
Price is getting worse in the meta right now as more and more decks are including basics to get around blood moon shenanigans.
We should be replacing/splitting between Forsaken Wastes and Vortex as Wastes is better in the battle of Abrupt Decay which is very good at getting rid of Vortex.
Finally, one of the biggest ticks in the deck is the synergy between Searing Blood, Searing Blaze and Eidolon of the Great Revel. We don’t want to remove those spells. I do think we can get away with only 3 EotGR though. Fireblast is also a 3 of, not 2 of. It’s our finisher for christ’s sakes.
It's not that the deck is Broken but WoTC is giving us so many amazing reason's to start testing splashing. If it wasn't for testing we would never find innovations. Do you know HOW many Burn players I've had to convince that EOTGR is a GOOD magic card since its printing? Same goes for Bump and Choice.
(1) It is a 3cmc spell.
(2) isn't fantastic in multiples
(3) is a 3cmc spell.
(4) is a 3cmc spell.
If you have questions or comments, post 'em here or on The Meadery and I'll get to them :).
Cheers!
Separate note: How is it that UR Storm is in Proven but Burn is not? It's not like Burn hasn't won, you know, a GP.