Has anyone thought about putting delver of secrets, jeskai charm, electrolyze or serum visions?
This deck runs a good amount of spells so 3/2 flyer is not bad turn.
Jeskai charm when you have a bunch small creatures you can pump them and get lifelink or deal 4 damage. If need be get rid of a blocker or something.
Electrolyze get rid of 2 tokens or 1 creature and draw a card, not bad.
Serum visions sometimes burn needs a draw spell and this let's you scary 2. I had games where I get mana flooded and this would let me manipulate my draw and get ready for the next turn.
There's not enough depth in Blue for Burn to justify that as the third splash colour, even if you consider cards like Snapcaster Mage to be viable.
Delver of Secrets is a bit too hard to flip in Burn, where the maximum amount of Burn spells tends to be 26. This gives raw odds on Delver blind-flipping at ~44% (assuming distribution/proportion of Burn spells vs lands/creatures remains the same), and will only approach 50% before Turn 4 if you have an all-creature hand. Without any viable library manipulation, I wouldn't run it in the deck, especially when Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear do a decent job of efficient and aggressive 1-drops. (I'd argue Wild Nacatl is on there too, but that's for a different discussion)
Wild Nacatl is a decent threat in the Burn deck, enabling a more aggressive start against both Control decks, as well as decks with Leyline of Sanctity or a decent amount of chump blockers. It's also exceptionally strong with Atarka's Command, enabling the Burn pilot to punish Spellskite blocks. Vexing Devil is at best, a slightly better Lava Spike, IFF you have exactly one to play on Turn 1.
2RR is significant, but it also gets around chalice hate and can potentially blow out some prison strategies.
As I'm already on one Sensei's Divining Top, and would consider a second if I were on the Monastery Swiftspear build, the feeling is the same. With or without Sensei's Divining Top, Fiery Confluence is far too slow. Even if it were uncounterable, I wouldn't consider it, to be honest. Between Sensei's Divining Top, Grim Lavamancer and trying to cast 1-2 burn spells a turn, my build just doesn't have room to cast it.
Fiery Confluence is too expensive for consideration in Burn. Having a card that is both contingent on hitting four land drops in a row to cast it on Turn 4 is a bit much to ask for an 18-20 land deck without cantrips, especially as Daze/Spell Pierce are still live cards when casting it.
why is mental misstep bannned? so some free counter spells are legal, and some that are more color flexible are not? Legacy bans make zero sense. Ban DTT because "If it aint delver it aint right". Can someone help me make sense of these bans
Mental Misstep is banned, because it makes the meta more degenerate and bluer than it needs to be.
There are very few decks that would choose not to run it, and it forces the meta to build around it. (Moreso than Brainstorm, and other good U cantrips)
Just getting started in Legacy Burn, I have a few questions to ask..
First off, how are we against Miracles? Any notable plays, tips, or tricks anyone can give me?
Secondly, I am very intrigued with the concept of Black Vise in this deck and have been following the last few pages of work on it. Overall does this seem like the best strategy for us, or should we be sticking with tried and true pre-ban builds and experiment with Vise for now? Just looking for your opinions and why you feel that way, thank you!
Probably the best thing to do against Miracles is knowing stack interaction, especially in regards to trying to get around Counterbalance locks.
It's not a bad idea to consider taking out Fireblast in post-board games, as Miracles is heavily incentivised to keep a Terminus within the top three cards of their library, to mitigate the more aggressive openings that Burn can have. There are times where it is useful though, in particular once the Terminus miracle trigger finishes resolving.
Interesting things to test out: Jace, the Mind Sculptor+Bloodbraid Elf (to keep Jace in check). Format can only reasonably support one of Bloodbraid Elf or Deathrite Shaman, and DRS is probably a bit too strong to justify at the moment. Stoneforge Mystic seems reasonably safe, especially as there is a decent amount of Kolaghan's Command in the format. Being able to both kill it and the equipment it brings in is quite handy. I wouldn't mind testing Punishing Fire, although I think it would skew the meta far away from Aggro.
This is a modified build, the meat of which taken from Speedbump on The Source. Like you pointed out earlier, this build does what you say burn should not - eschews explosiveness (it's about 1/4 to half a turn slower on average - sometimes w/o perfect play I lose w/ the opposing fair deck @ 1-2 life, where with a 2+ Swiftspears build I could've pulled ahead) for a chance vs certain bad MUs (mostly combo) like Omnitell/S&T, although it also fares better vs. Miracles.
The Sensei's Divining Top build I'm using is designed to crush the life out of Miracles players, which is a very commonly played archetype in Melbourne. The meta here (mainly consisting of Miracles, RUG/BUG/RUB Delver variants, and a few Death and Taxes and Shardless BUG players) also affords the extra half-turn tempo to be spent in a more resilient gameplan (carried through via Grim Lavamancer, Barbarian Ring, and Sensei's Divining Top), as there are very few Storm/Omni-Tell decks played in paper.
I think that the divergence in our builds is perfectly fine, and highlights our respective metagames. The Swiftspear version is more suitable if you expect to play against Omni-Tell, whereas the Divining Top version is more suitable if you expect to play against Miracles. I don't think there's a way to build Burn to beat both of these decks, so it's a meta call as to which one is more suitable for your metagame.
is the ideal number of fetches (when running 2 lavamancers) 12? or would 10 just work just as fine?
From testing Burn in both Modern and Legacy, 10 fetches is perfectly fine. There typically is enough cards in the graveyard on Turn 2 to be able to use Grim Lavamancer's ability on a creature or player, assuming that there is a Lava Spike or Lightning Bolt going upstairs.
Most people prefer going up to twelve, for that small percentage increase of having two fetches in the yard by Turn 2. The extra fetchland count is useful in the following scenarios:
1) Where you draw Goblin Guide/Rift Bolt on Turn 2, and you still want to shoot with Grim Lavamancer
2) When your first land is not a fetchland, and you need to use Grim Lavamancer that turn to shoot something.
3) Extra fetchlands that can be used to turn on Landfall on Searing Blaze (more useful when you're able to sandbag a land in addition to holding up Grim Lavamancer)
There's a list that used Barbarian Ring, 1 MD and 1 SB, in the Melbourne Legacy Masters. There's a good discussion of the list over on The Source. It also plays Sensei's Divining Top, apparently it's designed to be slower and grind out against Miracles.
Yep, it's exactly what I designed it to do.
Barbarian Ring was very much a meta call, as a card that can get under Counterbalance to deal the last few points of damage. The second one was there because I expected quite a few players playing Miracles to turn up. (6 players playing the archetype) In effect, I traded about half a turn's worth of speed for the ability to have a much stronger late-game. The obvious downside of this build choice is that I'm much more of an underdog against Omni-Tell, as the slower speed of this list can't capitalize as easily on a slow Omni-Tell start like Monastery Swiftspear builds can.
I think it's still a correct meta-choice, insofar as if you expect to play more Miracles players than Omni-Tell players, then you have more advantages with it. Probably the better choice in the future (assuming Omni-Tell becomes the top deck to beat) is the Swiftspear builds.
If I were to go with a replacement over candles I would use another obscure untapper from urza's saga in peregrine drake. Probably the most efficient untapper at sorcery other than turnabout and candelabra other than cloud of faeries but cloud doesn't allow you to go big enough whereas drake generates far more mana and when combined with snap is a huge mana generator that has the added bnonus of being able to block flipped delver.
At that point, you may as well start casting Palinchron. Can go infinite with 2 High Tides and 4+ lands, or 3 High Tides and 3+ lands.
SDT does make sense due to your fetches but I'm curious as to how well it works out in actual play. It's not a burn spell, after all, and you're also running it as a one of.
Honestly, the card is pretty strong in Burn.
The main reason Burn tends to lose matches is running out of gas, and Sensei's Divining Top is very strong at keeping Burn spells on the top of your library. Also, as I am running 8 fetchlands, I could more aggressively use them to clear the top of my library, or if I need to find a particular card quickly. It is especially strong against slower decks like Miracles, where you can just play the inevitability game against them. Sensei's Divining Top is also very strong against discard, as you become less reliant on the cards in your hand to get you there.
In the actual event, I won 2 out of the 3 games I played when I cast it on Turn 1, losing to an OmniTell player who had it on Turn 2. It also helped me win an otherwise unwinnable game against my mate playing Shardless BUGw, where I managed to find a timely Price of Progress through two fetches and three spins of the top. Caused a little bit of salt, as he was on 15, and I had Lightning Bolt+Fireblast in hand, to hit him for exactsies.
Looking outside of my meta-related results, Sensei's Divining Top is not great against fast Combo or fast Aggro, but Burn itself is not that great vs fast Combo. It's slightly more suitable in a deck like the one I was using for Masters, where it's geared more towards the late game. I think one is enough in the deck, as multiples are exceptionally clunky. I'm still needing to test more games with it though, as I only had 4 days to prepare post-studies for the tournament.
Delver of Secrets is a bit too hard to flip in Burn, where the maximum amount of Burn spells tends to be 26. This gives raw odds on Delver blind-flipping at ~44% (assuming distribution/proportion of Burn spells vs lands/creatures remains the same), and will only approach 50% before Turn 4 if you have an all-creature hand. Without any viable library manipulation, I wouldn't run it in the deck, especially when Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear do a decent job of efficient and aggressive 1-drops. (I'd argue Wild Nacatl is on there too, but that's for a different discussion)
Wild Nacatl is a decent threat in the Burn deck, enabling a more aggressive start against both Control decks, as well as decks with Leyline of Sanctity or a decent amount of chump blockers. It's also exceptionally strong with Atarka's Command, enabling the Burn pilot to punish Spellskite blocks. Vexing Devil is at best, a slightly better Lava Spike, IFF you have exactly one to play on Turn 1.
In terms of dealing with prison strategies (mainly those contingent on Sphere of Resistance+Chalice of the Void), Smash to Smithereens is better at dealing with it. There are niche cases where you lose to Chalice of the Void on 1 and 2, but those are much less likely than being able to take down the Chalice on 1 in response to the Chalice on 2 being cast. If you're particularly worried about getting locked by MUD, Shattering Spree is more what you're after.
There are very few decks that would choose not to run it, and it forces the meta to build around it. (Moreso than Brainstorm, and other good U cantrips)
Cards like Exquisite Firecraft and Vexing Shusher are great to come in from the sideboard, and I personally like both Sensei's Divining Top and Barbarian Ring, although my meta does involve more Miracles than most. Determining whether or not your opponent is running Snapcaster Mage/Monastery Mentor/Karakas-build can be somewhat relevant, as it will affect sideboarding decisions as well.
It's not a bad idea to consider taking out Fireblast in post-board games, as Miracles is heavily incentivised to keep a Terminus within the top three cards of their library, to mitigate the more aggressive openings that Burn can have. There are times where it is useful though, in particular once the Terminus miracle trigger finishes resolving.
What I think should happen: Nothing unbanned.
Interesting things to test out: Jace, the Mind Sculptor+Bloodbraid Elf (to keep Jace in check). Format can only reasonably support one of Bloodbraid Elf or Deathrite Shaman, and DRS is probably a bit too strong to justify at the moment. Stoneforge Mystic seems reasonably safe, especially as there is a decent amount of Kolaghan's Command in the format. Being able to both kill it and the equipment it brings in is quite handy. I wouldn't mind testing Punishing Fire, although I think it would skew the meta far away from Aggro.
The Sensei's Divining Top build I'm using is designed to crush the life out of Miracles players, which is a very commonly played archetype in Melbourne. The meta here (mainly consisting of Miracles, RUG/BUG/RUB Delver variants, and a few Death and Taxes and Shardless BUG players) also affords the extra half-turn tempo to be spent in a more resilient gameplan (carried through via Grim Lavamancer, Barbarian Ring, and Sensei's Divining Top), as there are very few Storm/Omni-Tell decks played in paper.
I think that the divergence in our builds is perfectly fine, and highlights our respective metagames. The Swiftspear version is more suitable if you expect to play against Omni-Tell, whereas the Divining Top version is more suitable if you expect to play against Miracles. I don't think there's a way to build Burn to beat both of these decks, so it's a meta call as to which one is more suitable for your metagame.
Most people prefer going up to twelve, for that small percentage increase of having two fetches in the yard by Turn 2. The extra fetchland count is useful in the following scenarios:
1) Where you draw Goblin Guide/Rift Bolt on Turn 2, and you still want to shoot with Grim Lavamancer
2) When your first land is not a fetchland, and you need to use Grim Lavamancer that turn to shoot something.
3) Extra fetchlands that can be used to turn on Landfall on Searing Blaze (more useful when you're able to sandbag a land in addition to holding up Grim Lavamancer)
Barbarian Ring was very much a meta call, as a card that can get under Counterbalance to deal the last few points of damage. The second one was there because I expected quite a few players playing Miracles to turn up. (6 players playing the archetype) In effect, I traded about half a turn's worth of speed for the ability to have a much stronger late-game. The obvious downside of this build choice is that I'm much more of an underdog against Omni-Tell, as the slower speed of this list can't capitalize as easily on a slow Omni-Tell start like Monastery Swiftspear builds can.
I think it's still a correct meta-choice, insofar as if you expect to play more Miracles players than Omni-Tell players, then you have more advantages with it. Probably the better choice in the future (assuming Omni-Tell becomes the top deck to beat) is the Swiftspear builds.
Everything else seems either just barely fine, or too slow.
The main reason Burn tends to lose matches is running out of gas, and Sensei's Divining Top is very strong at keeping Burn spells on the top of your library. Also, as I am running 8 fetchlands, I could more aggressively use them to clear the top of my library, or if I need to find a particular card quickly. It is especially strong against slower decks like Miracles, where you can just play the inevitability game against them. Sensei's Divining Top is also very strong against discard, as you become less reliant on the cards in your hand to get you there.
In the actual event, I won 2 out of the 3 games I played when I cast it on Turn 1, losing to an OmniTell player who had it on Turn 2. It also helped me win an otherwise unwinnable game against my mate playing Shardless BUGw, where I managed to find a timely Price of Progress through two fetches and three spins of the top. Caused a little bit of salt, as he was on 15, and I had Lightning Bolt+Fireblast in hand, to hit him for exactsies.
Looking outside of my meta-related results, Sensei's Divining Top is not great against fast Combo or fast Aggro, but Burn itself is not that great vs fast Combo. It's slightly more suitable in a deck like the one I was using for Masters, where it's geared more towards the late game. I think one is enough in the deck, as multiples are exceptionally clunky. I'm still needing to test more games with it though, as I only had 4 days to prepare post-studies for the tournament.