I do not think it's playable, in this deck you do not take advantage except with AV but in the late
In decks that fill the cemetery of instants from the first turn is playable.
You might be right. It might be better in the mono red version, but I like the idea of casting AV and more importantly FL for free. Even a LE that has already been used or countered can be reused.
Hey this is my first post in this thread but curious to see if anyone has any feedback on a list I made. Looking to build it soon as a backup deck or even main depending on my meta which shifts all the time.
Living End:
Maindeck (60)
4 Flameblade Adept
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Hollow One
4 Desert Cerodon
4 Striped Riverwinder
2 Ancestral Vision
4 Living End
4 Faithless Looting
4 Electrodominance
4 Remand
3 As Foretold
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Tolaria West
Sideboard (15)
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Dispel
2 Lightning Axe
2 Echoing Truth
2 Dragon's Claw
Serra is a 4 drop so it would be T4 (or even T3 because of Noble) anthem, then the next turn worship.
The best card we could get is probably Sulfuric Vortex but doubtful that they would print it. Fireblast, and Price are super strong too but, Sulfuric Vortex answers almost all the problem cards we deal with (Leyline and life gain).
I cannot express in words how much I hate the concept of emblems because they cannot be interacted with in any way at all. That kind of stuff just shouldn't exist.
I agree with you 100%. There still hasn't been a rule or card that allows any kind of interactions with emblems. I have a hunch that even if they made a card to interact with emblems it probably will be too narrow to be played anyways.
I think Serra is super strong though because she anthems then she ults the next turn. Bump in the Night got a raise in importance just from her being announced. Wanderer already kind of makes that deck somewhat annoying to play against. I could also see them switch a couple of cards to add Judges Familiar to the deck to help support her.
LUtS is close to playable but I would say Magma Jet is better and it sees no play.
I think MJ could see play if it simply added draw a card after the Scry 2. Curious if anyone agrees with me on that?
Risk Factor is better than LUtS in most cases, but it is still not good enough to play in Modern Burn (though it does see play elsewhere)
Conditional spells such have a potential to be clunky and the more spells you add the exponentially more clunky the cards/deck becomes.
I am glad people are testing the waters with new cards as it helps the community as a whole.
Everything you just said is 100% correct in that we collectively need to remain respect and thus I will apologize for being insultive.
At this point I agree to disagree about the core of our discussion, but continue to agree that this card is an automatic 4 of now going forward in Modern.
Wow what a way to divert the conversation into something that I never made a big deal about. The conversation was to differentiate the difference between Chain Lightning and Rift Bolt to see which one Skewer the Critics was akin to. News flash for ya, all 3 spells that were being discussed as the main topic are Sorcery Speed. This wasn't a win or lose argument as we both agree that it should be played in Modern burn, but when you divert the discussion into something that wasn't even a point of contention then you start to lose your side of the discussion.
The only reason I made the statement which had sorcery speed in it was to further explain the criteria for the scenario.
"I think it's the closest to getting Chain Lightning that we'll ever see in Modern, and being a sorcery doesn't bother me at all. I know that I'd have no hesitation about adding Chain Lightning, and this is doing a good Chain Lightning impression if you can cast it for R sufficiently often."
You'ree hyping Skewer up to be closer to Chain Lighting rather than Rift Bolt which is just absurd. Even Rift Bolt can ALWAYS be suspended for R. Skewer is a situational Bolt that has a requirement to be R= 3 damage. That is not the case for Chain Lightning, but is for cards such as Rift Bolt, Shard Volley, or even something like Thunderous Wrath with each of those cards progressively worse in the situation needed to pull off the requirement.
Also since when is doing damage to your opponent flavor text for burn?
I think you're wrong that it's closer to rift bolt than chain lightning. The condition to be R=3 is "play a Burn game plan".
It's flavor text when they don't cast things that trigger it. It's not "whenever your opponent casts a spell, ping them". It triggers on non-creature only, so a lot of an affinity deck won't care about that. KCI will, though. In matchups where you're gunning for the leyline, it won't trigger on the creatures they drop but it will trigger for things like iok. It will trigger on bogles' enchantments, but they're gaining 6 this turn and next turn and the turn after that and whoops game over just in time to blow up leyline.
That is the whole point! It is still conditional. Is it going happen to be R=3 a decent amount of the time? Sure but there going to be times when it's not, and possibly not be able to be even castable with only 2 lands in play. That is why it is not close to Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning is ALWAYS R=3 with potential for RRR=6 under normal circumstances. You know what you can do at sorcery speed with no damage potential on the table (plenty of times our creatures get outclassed fast) and only 2 lands? Suspend a Rift Bolt. It is going to be similar to Searing Blaze in that there are going to be times where it is a dead card or not full value due to the board state.
With all that said I think this makes Grim Lavamancer even more needed in the deck as a 2 of. He was already great at helping keep creature decks in check, but he now plays double duty even more.
"I think it's the closest to getting Chain Lightning that we'll ever see in Modern, and being a sorcery doesn't bother me at all. I know that I'd have no hesitation about adding Chain Lightning, and this is doing a good Chain Lightning impression if you can cast it for R sufficiently often."
You'ree hyping Skewer up to be closer to Chain Lighting rather than Rift Bolt which is just absurd. Even Rift Bolt can ALWAYS be suspended for R. Skewer is a situational Bolt that has a requirement to be R= 3 damage. That is not the case for Chain Lightning, but is for cards such as Rift Bolt, Shard Volley, or even something like Thunderous Wrath with each of those cards progressively worse in the situation needed to pull off the requirement.
Also since when is doing damage to your opponent flavor text for burn?
So guys, you really consider the skewer to be a card in the "core cards" 4of in the main deck of RW/g burn ?
I would really like to believe that, and then just leave 8-9 flex cards (skullcrack, helix, blaze) as elconquistador listed it in a early post. I totally agree with your list of core/flex cards.
The only thing that still makes me hesitate is only the "sorcery" part of the card :S
I'm currently playing 3 skullcrack, 4 blaze and 4 helix maindeck. Yes i know i could remove 1 blaze/1 helix to add 2-3 skewer.
I will try to test it before GP toronto, but i'm still hesitant :'(
If you guys have the deck on mtgo/coackatrice and also want to test the card (when it will be legal) please share us your comments here.
I do think it's likely going to prove it is good enough to be a core card. I think it's the closest to getting Chain Lightning that we'll ever see in Modern, and being a sorcery doesn't bother me at all. I know that I'd have no hesitation about adding Chain Lightning, and this is doing a good Chain Lightning impression if you can cast it for R sufficiently often.
I will give it some play on cockatrice when I can. I'll try to specifically detail instances of using Skewer and instances when it was bad (times it uncastable, for instance), be and average cmc, cast turn, etc.
Wow coming back to this thread I knew there would be talk about the 2 new toys, but man is some of this is hilarious.
First off in NO way is Skewer remotely on the power level of Chain Lighting. Chain Lightning is ALWAYS 1 CMC under normal circumstances. It is more closer to Rift Bolt with Skewer getting an edge over it in some situations (mainly casting multiple burn spells in a turn without the delay associated with Rift Bolt). Rift Bolt gets the edge on turn 1 because you can't even cast Skewer on T1 (which you can at least suspend a Rift Bolt), and it also works better with Swiftspear coming off of suspend.
Skewer is however an auto include for any version of Modern burn.
I am on the verge of confidently stating that Rakdos is better than Boros. Rakdos has always been the faster deck but Boros was more of a resilient deck. Rakdos now only lacks enchantment hate which most Boros deck splash green for Destructive Revelry which should now be replaced by the new card Cinder Lash anyways. For the statements about Rakdos not having a sideboard that is absurd. Black brings Push to the table, but you can go Jund and play Assassin's Trophy to remove really the 2 most difficult things to deal with in Firewalker and Leyline with 1 card. This helps a ton when dealing with limited sideboard slots. Rain of Gore, Trophy, and Relic or Cage is really all you need.
Back to Cinder Lash for a moment. It is a touch slower than Revelry for sure, but overall it is a better card than Revelry for multiple reasons.
1. CS is better in multiples as you may not have additional targets for the other drawn copies of DR where as the static ability just stacks and thus will help close out the game.
2. CS gets utility even if they don't see their sb card.
3. CS's 1st ability is only for opponents and gets around Leyline since it doesn't target.
4. CS frees up having to hold up 2 Mana.
5. CS is proactive instead of reactive which is what burn prefers to do in general.
If you are going to make outlandish remarks then you don’t help others that really are trying learn how to play burn or new to the game in general.
I'll agree that outlandish remarks don't help, which is why I'm not comparing this card to treasure cruise and find it strange that you are. It should be obvious why they are not remotely comparable.
due to the nature of burn trying to be as efficient as possible
The other day, I said that one should play Burn in a manner that minimizes the likelihood that you run out of gas. You said that's "laughable". Now you state that the nature of Burn is to be a efficient as possible. So are you making laughable statements now or are you agreeing with me? Both statements are expressing the same idea.
I did call it laughable you are correct because no matter how efficient you play you can still end up drawing bad cards ie multiple lands or creatures past turn 3. That should be obvious and I don’t understand why you are still fighting something that should be common knowledge for an experienced burn player.
Unavoidable random outcomes are unavoidable random outcomes. You minimize the probability of running out of Burn spells by not wasting the ones you draw. Sometimes you can let a creature live instead of bolting it, by playing to your outs and bolting their face and accepting that you need 2 good draws to win before their clock wins. If you bolt the creature, you end up needing 3 good draws to win. That's called tight play, and you're calling it "laughable". That is downright absurd. I don't understand how an experienced Burn player would call tight play "laughable".
Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. Even if you play as “tight“ as you possibly can you still have to draw somewhat decent which has always been a downfall of the deck.
Let’s look at burn just as a concept for a moment. If you just go with a notion that each card represents 3 damage (I know that this is oversimplified, but this is what your opponent typically does) and we would like to have 2 lands in our opener that means we have 15 damage in our hand to start. That mean over the next 3 draws we need 2 more non lands at least for the 21 damage. So we are heavily reliant upon what we draw even with our ideal opening hand.
RF somewhat mitigates the bad draws by either changing it out for damage or more cards.
But hey I know you love doing math so just run the numbers yourself. What is the chance of drawing a creature or land past T3 with a stock list and let’s just say you had 2-3 creatures and 3 lands within the prior turns (I used those numbers as an average game)?
You might be right. It might be better in the mono red version, but I like the idea of casting AV and more importantly FL for free. Even a LE that has already been used or countered can be reused.
Living End:
Maindeck (60)
4 Flameblade Adept
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Hollow One
4 Desert Cerodon
4 Striped Riverwinder
2 Ancestral Vision
4 Living End
4 Faithless Looting
4 Electrodominance
4 Remand
3 As Foretold
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Tolaria West
Sideboard (15)
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Dispel
2 Lightning Axe
2 Echoing Truth
2 Dragon's Claw
The best card we could get is probably Sulfuric Vortex but doubtful that they would print it. Fireblast, and Price are super strong too but, Sulfuric Vortex answers almost all the problem cards we deal with (Leyline and life gain).
I agree with you 100%. There still hasn't been a rule or card that allows any kind of interactions with emblems. I have a hunch that even if they made a card to interact with emblems it probably will be too narrow to be played anyways.
I think Serra is super strong though because she anthems then she ults the next turn. Bump in the Night got a raise in importance just from her being announced. Wanderer already kind of makes that deck somewhat annoying to play against. I could also see them switch a couple of cards to add Judges Familiar to the deck to help support her.
I think MJ could see play if it simply added draw a card after the Scry 2. Curious if anyone agrees with me on that?
Risk Factor is better than LUtS in most cases, but it is still not good enough to play in Modern Burn (though it does see play elsewhere)
Conditional spells such have a potential to be clunky and the more spells you add the exponentially more clunky the cards/deck becomes.
I am glad people are testing the waters with new cards as it helps the community as a whole.
At this point I agree to disagree about the core of our discussion, but continue to agree that this card is an automatic 4 of now going forward in Modern.
The only reason I made the statement which had sorcery speed in it was to further explain the criteria for the scenario.
Rakdos Burn:
Maindeck (56)
4 Goblin Guide
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Bump in the Night
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
4 Skewer the Critics
3 Sovereign's Bite
4 Rift Bolt
1 Arid Mesa
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard (15)
2 Fatal Push
4 Assassin's Trophy
1 Rakdos Charm
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Dragon's Claw
3 Rain of Gore
That is the whole point! It is still conditional. Is it going happen to be R=3 a decent amount of the time? Sure but there going to be times when it's not, and possibly not be able to be even castable with only 2 lands in play. That is why it is not close to Chain Lightning. Chain Lightning is ALWAYS R=3 with potential for RRR=6 under normal circumstances. You know what you can do at sorcery speed with no damage potential on the table (plenty of times our creatures get outclassed fast) and only 2 lands? Suspend a Rift Bolt. It is going to be similar to Searing Blaze in that there are going to be times where it is a dead card or not full value due to the board state.
With all that said I think this makes Grim Lavamancer even more needed in the deck as a 2 of. He was already great at helping keep creature decks in check, but he now plays double duty even more.
You'ree hyping Skewer up to be closer to Chain Lighting rather than Rift Bolt which is just absurd. Even Rift Bolt can ALWAYS be suspended for R. Skewer is a situational Bolt that has a requirement to be R= 3 damage. That is not the case for Chain Lightning, but is for cards such as Rift Bolt, Shard Volley, or even something like Thunderous Wrath with each of those cards progressively worse in the situation needed to pull off the requirement.
Also since when is doing damage to your opponent flavor text for burn?
Wow coming back to this thread I knew there would be talk about the 2 new toys, but man is some of this is hilarious.
First off in NO way is Skewer remotely on the power level of Chain Lighting. Chain Lightning is ALWAYS 1 CMC under normal circumstances. It is more closer to Rift Bolt with Skewer getting an edge over it in some situations (mainly casting multiple burn spells in a turn without the delay associated with Rift Bolt). Rift Bolt gets the edge on turn 1 because you can't even cast Skewer on T1 (which you can at least suspend a Rift Bolt), and it also works better with Swiftspear coming off of suspend.
Skewer is however an auto include for any version of Modern burn.
I am on the verge of confidently stating that Rakdos is better than Boros. Rakdos has always been the faster deck but Boros was more of a resilient deck. Rakdos now only lacks enchantment hate which most Boros deck splash green for Destructive Revelry which should now be replaced by the new card Cinder Lash anyways. For the statements about Rakdos not having a sideboard that is absurd. Black brings Push to the table, but you can go Jund and play Assassin's Trophy to remove really the 2 most difficult things to deal with in Firewalker and Leyline with 1 card. This helps a ton when dealing with limited sideboard slots. Rain of Gore, Trophy, and Relic or Cage is really all you need.
Back to Cinder Lash for a moment. It is a touch slower than Revelry for sure, but overall it is a better card than Revelry for multiple reasons.
1. CS is better in multiples as you may not have additional targets for the other drawn copies of DR where as the static ability just stacks and thus will help close out the game.
2. CS gets utility even if they don't see their sb card.
3. CS's 1st ability is only for opponents and gets around Leyline since it doesn't target.
4. CS frees up having to hold up 2 Mana.
5. CS is proactive instead of reactive which is what burn prefers to do in general.
Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. Even if you play as “tight“ as you possibly can you still have to draw somewhat decent which has always been a downfall of the deck.
Let’s look at burn just as a concept for a moment. If you just go with a notion that each card represents 3 damage (I know that this is oversimplified, but this is what your opponent typically does) and we would like to have 2 lands in our opener that means we have 15 damage in our hand to start. That mean over the next 3 draws we need 2 more non lands at least for the 21 damage. So we are heavily reliant upon what we draw even with our ideal opening hand.
RF somewhat mitigates the bad draws by either changing it out for damage or more cards.
But hey I know you love doing math so just run the numbers yourself. What is the chance of drawing a creature or land past T3 with a stock list and let’s just say you had 2-3 creatures and 3 lands within the prior turns (I used those numbers as an average game)?