It does (unless your opponent was above his starting life total when he cast it)
edit: the actual rule:
118.5. If an effect sets a player’s life total to a specific number, the player gains or loses the necessary amount of life to end up with the new total
Here's a mardu burn list Ive been playing around with. I haven't actually tested it in games, I'm still getting the bridges. Just wanted to see what you all thought. Monastery Swiftspear can attack under our own bridge, then cast burn. Bridge seems like it would be good against death shadow, eldrazi, even affinity so all you have to worry about is controlling a zero power creature with the plating. I know cutting our best creatures against combo decks make us worst against them, but those are already pretty bad matchups I think. Or maybe just cut swiftpear too to blank all their removal. Like I said its just an idea at this point, so feel free to leave your thoughts on the deck.
If you're going to cut guide & eidolon, I would suggest going completely creatureless. Chances are swifty won't be able to attack anyway, since all your opponent's creature will be stuck on defense.
I think channelfireball (or scg? or someone else?) posted a mardu creatureless burn list centered around bridge a few months ago. I think they were running the black energy bolt. (It worked well in the very small sample they had)
Honestly, while I think bridge is amazing in the side, I'm not a big fan of having it main, and I'm even less of a fan of cutting guide and eidolon. Burn doesn't really have anyway to fixed it's draws, and it doesn't mulligan that well (especially if you go creatureless) so relying on drawing a 4-of seems risky. That being said, I might be completely wrong, so go nuts! Bets of luck
Karakas is probably better (can't be countered, multiple use, can handle Iona & the deck were we want to have it doesn't usually play land hate)
Deflecting Palm has the up side of dealing damage & being useful in other match up (like burn,infect)
In my case I went with Palm because I din't own the Karakas
So far I've preferred having Relic of Progenitus.
It's not as powerful as RIP, but you can get it on turn 1, and you can always use it to draw a card, so it's not backbreaking to draw multiples
I just wanted to leave this here. The math seems to advocate for 19 lands over 20, as a ~3% chance difference to hit your third land drop isn't that huge of a deal.
It's interesting, because he took mulligan into account, but lets look at his rules: You mulligan any 7-card hand with 0, 1, 6, or 7 lands.
You mulligan any 6-card hand with 0, 1, 5, or 6 lands.
You mulligan any 5-card hand with 0 or 5 lands.
You keep any 4-card hand.
After a mulligan, you always scry a land to the top and a spell to the bottom.
See the problem? His math works if you keep 5 lands opener, 4 lands after mulliganing to 6 & 4 lands after mulliganing to 5 AND it always keeps a land on top if possible
So if we follow these rules, chances are both deck will have 2 lands on turn 2... but it doesn't actually say how many cards we will have in our hands at that point
Would need to go through the math with much different mulligan rules (like always mull if 4+ lands, a put the land on the bottom if you already have 2 in hand)
edit:
Actually, looking at the little table he made at the end, he said 19 lands for .8-1.12cmc & 20 lands for 1.12-1.44cmc
Our cmc is 1.49-1.5, so we should actually be running 21 lands!! (although his table was for standard so... meh)
I'm also enjoying the WWYD scenarios. I have one myself:
On the play, opening hand: Guide, Swift, Eidolon, Lava Spike, Boros Charm, 2 Fetches
We all agree that the T1 play is Goblin Guide. But my question is, what is the T2 play? Eidolon or Switf + Lava spike? Assume you draw a land on T2.
Turn 1: Fetch and Guide. Hit for 2.
Turn 2: Fetch and play Swiftspear. Lava Spike. Get in for 7 damage total that turn. That should bring your opponent to 10 life if they fetched the previous turn.
The following turn I'll probably try to bait removal on my creatures and then play Eidolon post combat.
That's actually a good question. My initial thinking was to play the Eidolon pre-combat, so they have to choose between killing the Guide and missing a possible land trigger, killing the Swiftspear and taking an extra point of damage from the Guide attack, or waiting until the Eidolon resolves and taking two from the removal spell. What do you all think for this turn 3?
I would go T1 Guide, T2 Eidolon
If you go Guide into Swifty/Lavaspike, you used all your 1 drops and are left with a hand of: Boros Charm, Eidolon, Land.
Unless you draw a 1-drop, you won't be able to fully use your mana next turn
Also Eidolon is usually better the earlier you play it; especially if your opponent plays discard/cantrip/counters.
Don't remember much about the games, but the mu were
Tournament 1:
(don't remember... control maybe?): Win
BW Zombies: Win
B Zombies: Loss
B Zombies: Win
Tournament 2:
Mono Red Harness to the Storm: Win
GB Energy: Win
UR Tempo: Win
Marvel: Loss
BW Zombies Win
Loved the addition of anticipate, gave me something to spend mana on when I held back for negate, and was a great top deck
Loved the bedlam reveler, I mostly wanted him just to draw 3, but the body was very helpful more than once
Most of my losses came from not drawing enough lands; the deck can handle drawing too many thanks to Collective Defiance & Tormenting voice, but getting stuck was really painful.
Din't get to play against any deck were I would want Fevered Visions... and honestly I think I'll just cut it at this point; it's not even the unanswerable win con it used to be against control since they have access to Commit // Memory now
Deck is very soft to Marvel atm, especially when they have a Puzzleknot
I'm leaning to splashing black for 3 Shriekmaw and 1 Chains of Mephistopheles. Yes, I do own a Chains of Mephistopheles and the badlands for the splash. Maybe, I should be looking into a different deck?
I like Shriekmaw because of it's Evoke ability and that it can take out almost every 'non-Griselbrand' creature in a show/re-animator deck, as well as goyf. I lost too many games when the opponent play's a 2nd turn Iona. I never really had any issues with Griselbrand. I hate to say it but Ensnaring Bridge don't kill Iona.
As for Chains it does nothing to me. I would like 2 for consistency but I don't have the money to buy a second Chains. Against other decks chains just kills them!
On the sideboard against combo I'm leaning to adding 3 Thorn of Amethyst. I know this sounds insane, but please hear me out. I love Eidolon but the damage can be avoided such as playing Angel's Grace. And some 'good' players could try to combo enough cards so they could regain life with Tendrils of Agony and play the combo again for the win. I used to like Mindbreak Trap but that was before an opponent cast Orim's Chant and combo for the win. Thorn stops all that BS, the combo player is now force to add one extra mana for their spells, and loosing momentum very fast. The downside against us is that our spells cost 1 extra mana, sure we don't have the speed but combo would have a hell of a time pulling off a quick win. I ended up buying 2 more throns, so I could test this out.
Black splash I'm undecided. Maybe a different deck would be appropriate. I love the ability of fast creatures and fast damage, but I'm also looking for something that sucker punches the opponent. I'm open for suggestions.
You can always keep some lands back for when you draw a Collective defiance and you get to replace them all into draw spells
The problem is that you also want to play a lot of them for if you draw a Bedlam Reveler :/
I think the best way to deal with gearhulks is artifact hate, takes to many burn spells otherwise.
It sucks to bring a card that is only has 1 target, but worst case you can probably cycle it with Tormenting Voice, Geier Reach Sanitarium or Collective Defiance
I've been using mirrorwing dragon until I can find some Glorybringer
While it doesn't have haste or the ability to kill a creature on atk, the extra toughness and the copy ability has been great so far (I have yet to face a mardu opponent who wants to unlicense it ^_^)
It does (unless your opponent was above his starting life total when he cast it)
edit: the actual rule:
118.5. If an effect sets a player’s life total to a specific number, the player gains or loses the necessary amount of life to end up with the new total
If you're going to cut guide & eidolon, I would suggest going completely creatureless. Chances are swifty won't be able to attack anyway, since all your opponent's creature will be stuck on defense.
I think channelfireball (or scg? or someone else?) posted a mardu creatureless burn list centered around bridge a few months ago. I think they were running the black energy bolt. (It worked well in the very small sample they had)
Honestly, while I think bridge is amazing in the side, I'm not a big fan of having it main, and I'm even less of a fan of cutting guide and eidolon. Burn doesn't really have anyway to fixed it's draws, and it doesn't mulligan that well (especially if you go creatureless) so relying on drawing a 4-of seems risky. That being said, I might be completely wrong, so go nuts! Bets of luck
Deflecting Palm has the up side of dealing damage & being useful in other match up (like burn,infect)
In my case I went with Palm because I din't own the Karakas
Not sure it's worth splash... but I was tired of losing too Reanimator/Show & Tell
It's not as powerful as RIP, but you can get it on turn 1, and you can always use it to draw a card, so it's not backbreaking to draw multiples
It's interesting, because he took mulligan into account, but lets look at his rules:
You mulligan any 7-card hand with 0, 1, 6, or 7 lands.
You mulligan any 6-card hand with 0, 1, 5, or 6 lands.
You mulligan any 5-card hand with 0 or 5 lands.
You keep any 4-card hand.
After a mulligan, you always scry a land to the top and a spell to the bottom.
See the problem? His math works if you keep 5 lands opener, 4 lands after mulliganing to 6 & 4 lands after mulliganing to 5 AND it always keeps a land on top if possible
So if we follow these rules, chances are both deck will have 2 lands on turn 2... but it doesn't actually say how many cards we will have in our hands at that point
Would need to go through the math with much different mulligan rules (like always mull if 4+ lands, a put the land on the bottom if you already have 2 in hand)
edit:
Actually, looking at the little table he made at the end, he said 19 lands for .8-1.12cmc & 20 lands for 1.12-1.44cmc
Our cmc is 1.49-1.5, so we should actually be running 21 lands!! (although his table was for standard so... meh)
I'm just going to leave this here
at 0 it can get rid of chalice or elemental tokens
and at 2 it get's rid of about 80% of their creatures (and spreading seas)
and it would be useful in other match ups as well (like deathshow, affinity, zoo, elves, soul sisters, token, etc)
2 burn list in the top 32 of GP Kobe
0 copies of atarka's command
3 had a green splash for destructive revelry
I would go T1 Guide, T2 Eidolon
If you go Guide into Swifty/Lavaspike, you used all your 1 drops and are left with a hand of: Boros Charm, Eidolon, Land.
Unless you draw a 1-drop, you won't be able to fully use your mana next turn
Also Eidolon is usually better the earlier you play it; especially if your opponent plays discard/cantrip/counters.
4x Spirebluff Canal
4x Wandering Fumarole
1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
10x Mountain
4x Island
Creatures (11)
2x Bedlam Reveler
4x Stormchaser Mage
4x Thermo-Alchemist
1x Glorybringer
4x Fiery Temper
2x Lightning Axe
2x Tormenting Voice
4x Incendiary Flow
4x Collective Defiance
3x Negate
4x Anticipate
Planeswalker (3)
3x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Sweltering Suns
2x Release the Gremlins
4x Magma Spray
1x Negate
4x Fevered Visions
Don't remember much about the games, but the mu were
Tournament 1:
(don't remember... control maybe?): Win
BW Zombies: Win
B Zombies: Loss
B Zombies: Win
Tournament 2:
Mono Red Harness to the Storm: Win
GB Energy: Win
UR Tempo: Win
Marvel: Loss
BW Zombies Win
Loved the addition of anticipate, gave me something to spend mana on when I held back for negate, and was a great top deck
Loved the bedlam reveler, I mostly wanted him just to draw 3, but the body was very helpful more than once
Most of my losses came from not drawing enough lands; the deck can handle drawing too many thanks to Collective Defiance & Tormenting voice, but getting stuck was really painful.
Din't get to play against any deck were I would want Fevered Visions... and honestly I think I'll just cut it at this point; it's not even the unanswerable win con it used to be against control since they have access to Commit // Memory now
Deck is very soft to Marvel atm, especially when they have a Puzzleknot
Someone brought a Rakdos burn deck to legacy with Vial Smasher the Fierce, turns out hes pretty good with Fireblast or Gurmag Angler
But at this point it's starting to be a different deck
My solution to an on board iona is to scoop and hope I can either hate in the grave or kill the player before he gets it next game
The problem is that you also want to play a lot of them for if you draw a Bedlam Reveler :/
I think the best way to deal with gearhulks is artifact hate, takes to many burn spells otherwise.
It sucks to bring a card that is only has 1 target, but worst case you can probably cycle it with Tormenting Voice, Geier Reach Sanitarium or Collective Defiance
btw have you considered Consuming Fervor? Never actually tested it myself, but I really want to play with it
While it doesn't have haste or the ability to kill a creature on atk, the extra toughness and the copy ability has been great so far (I have yet to face a mardu opponent who wants to unlicense it ^_^)