I wish I had kept my copies of Mental Misstep, They may well get the chop; they were banned from Extended if I recall correctly.
I don't understand the mental misstep comment. The card is not legal in Pioneer, and the highest price of the card is 2.19, getting a playset is not expensive.
I've got the box over the weekend and to my surprise the box set was not sealed wrapped. I'm not a major collector but I wonder what others thought about it. Or this is normal.
The common thinking is that if burn can't win by turn 4 then it won't win at all. Exquisite Firecraft allows you to win turn 5 and take the game deep. That's pretty much what it does. Instead of taking the risk of sacrificing land to Fireblast and be countered, which usually ends badly, Firecraft can wait another turn. And with only two of them, you'll drain half his life. Your opponent can cantrip all he wants. You already know he's dead. It's what makes it a great finisher. Players love to accomodate cards like Grim Lavamancer that look great on paper and once in a while they win a game or two, but burn is going nowhere with the Lavamancer. It's too slow and too high maintenance. I think burn just needs to play it straight and main deck cards like Firecraft so you don't fall behind against control and you can win those easy matches, especially in a meta completely dominated by Delver.
lol... I don't fall in to that category that believes that burn wins by turn 4 or bust.
Why a 3 mana spell is usually bad? If you consider a one card per turn draw, without cantrips (or other such help), that an opening hand must have at least 2 lands and then we assume that the next 3 draws (hopefully on turn 3) is a land card. Otherwise, you're stuck holding a 3 mana spell. In a casual game, you can afford a two land holdout for a few turn. But in a tournament setting, where winning is important, you cannot afford to take that risk.
Searing Blaze is great against Delver too, so you easily cruise by it, but it has a clear cut drawback. It can become a dead card in your hand against the wrong deck, and you're already taking that same risk with Price of Progress. Progress is still worth enough to main deck. Blaze is better off as a sideboard.
wow... Searing cards have a good number of targets, not just delver. You have more targets with searing cards then you would have with Price of Progress, especially if you consider the high cost of dual lands.
The reasons why a good number of players move away from searing cards, it's two mana and hard to maneuver with swiftspear, especially if you play swiftspear on turn 2.
On the other hand, swiftspear is a bad burn card because half the deck don't make swiftspear grow! And there are cards you're not going to cast just to make swiftspear grow (such as an early turn fireblast or Price of Progress)... I don't play swiftspear... but I understand why players like it, it can become a heavy hitter... but then again to make swiftspear a heavy hitter you not playing Eidolon.
It's the deck that made the semifinals at the Grand Prix in Atlanta last month. It has no self damage. Great to see the deck make it that far at a Grand Prix of all tourneys. Eidolon of the Great Revel is way too dominant not to play, but also the fact that the deck won't lose life fetching lands makes all the difference in the world. It's an extra spell or two you're able to play against the Eidolon. Exquisite Firecraft is deadly hitting for four late game no matter what. One of the most underrated cards in Magic right now. It can't be understated how huge the counterspell hate is for burn, which has been historically weak against control. Just a solid finisher both in Legacy and Modern. Add Price of Progress hitting cleanly for six or eight or even ten, plus Fireblast. Real potential for raising the deck to a top tier.
Interesting, Exquisite Firecraft was a good card when countertop was a deck. Nice to see it make a showing, but I'm not sure how long that will last. Usually, Searing blaze/blood is in that spot, and there is a good number of targets for those cards.
Agree... though if Icehide was a 3/3 or a 3/2 maybe...
I'm still not sure about the use of snow lands. I know my mono red EDH build has snow lands. Yeah, I have +30 snow mountains in the deck, but I'm doing it because of scrying sheets, but I wouldn't use scrying sheets in a legacy burn build because it's too damn slow.
I like running snow lands bc they look cool and sometimes I get the occasional opponent that gets thrown off for a bit and thinks I'm running some secret skred tech. Even the golem was a 3/x it still wouldn't be good enough without haste. For reference, not even creatures as efficient as tarmogoyf are worthy of inclusion in the deck. The creatures we do run just happen to be burn spells on a stick due to either their haste abilities, or in the case of Eidolon, immediately dealing damage to your opponent if they try to play anything. Without these abilities, it's too easy for a creature to get bolted/plowed/pathed/pushed/decayed before your next turn rolls around, and then you've just spent mana on a card that dealt zero damage.
I tend to believe low cost (especially for 1 mana) high power fits into mono red. It's the key to make the deck successful. Sure haste is awesome but not every creature has haste. But *we are often limiting ours to haste bears (2/2 creatures), and sometimes get trampled over during the longer gameplay. *we as in burn players...
I think Icehide is a rotten creature compared to Goblin Guide and Swiftspear. Because it's power level is closer to those creatures and it has no haste. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if Icehide would suck if it's a 3/3 or a 3/x because it would offer additional point of attack for the lost cost of 1 mana. Sadly, the only creature that comes close to this is VD. I know most players don't like VD because of the browbeat clause, I feel that they don't understand how to make it work for their advantage. But I'm not getting into that argument because it's a bash your head against the wall battle. I get it that nobody on this form likes VD... I do see my self dropping VD if icehide was a 3/3 or a 3/x and the only thing I had to do to my deck was add snowlands.
Please note if Delver of Secrets was red, it would be a main burn creature in our burn deck! This is why I believe that RU Devler is a stronger burn deck
New snow lands look badass or maybe Icehide Golem is worth playing in burn. Sorry I'm not sure...
It's not worth playing unfortunately. No haste means it is easily removed before it has a chance to deal damage.
Agree... though if Icehide was a 3/3 or a 3/2 maybe...
I'm still not sure about the use of snow lands. I know my mono red EDH build has snow lands. Yeah, I have +30 snow mountains in the deck, but I'm doing it because of scrying sheets, but I wouldn't use scrying sheets in a legacy burn build because it's too damn slow.
Why was mental misstep banned? Yeah, lot of the format is 1 mana spells, but you can also run it yourself or run stuff that cost more than 1 mana.
Because players cannot handle getting their brainstorm countered on turn 1. That's the reason why the card was banned.
I'm not sure if that was a serious comment or not, but it's partially true, i suppose.
Yeah, this is the controversy of the banning. There were players (pro players) that claimed that Mental Misstep turn Legacy into a coin toss format, because brainstorm was the common target. This was a major factor when any deck Burn, Goblins, Stompy, etc had a free card that could countered brainstorm on zero turn. Most decks blue decks playing brainstorm couldn't handle the early turn lost, especially against burn, goblins, stompy or such janks. It also hurt the decks because they got themseleves into playing Mental Misstep (which watered down their builds) so they can counter Mental Misstep instead of using a force of will.
Later the argument was switched to everybody was playing 4 Mental Missteps in a deck and we have 56 other cards.
Personally, I enjoyed the Mental Misstep legacy format because I don't agree that we should have solid consistence in magic. But I'm not a pro player, even though I've been playing this game since 1996... On the other hand, I believe pro magic players are worst, more worse those investing in Magic cards. Because they see the game in a gambling perspective, even though they don't want to admit they do, otherwise, Mental Misstep wouldnt be banned.
I'm not sure about the Horizon land because you cannot fetch them. So you have no control in having them in play. And at worst it would suck if you have 3 lands in play, 1 mountain and 2 Horizon lands and your stuck with a fireblast in your hand.
I'm surprised magic geek didn't consider Pithing Needle already. It works against a lot of other good decks that use activated abilities like DNT, and you can just plop it down turn 1 and name Thespian's Stage to stop the combo. Win-win in my book, but yeah anyway if you're a serious competitive player, getting attached to a pet deck is just bad and if you know your local meta is stacked against you, the best way to adapt is to play something else. You play burn because there's certain decks it's very good against and if the meta is mostly those certain decks, burn is the best deck to exploit those deck's weaknesses.
Yeah, pithing needle is a good card. Agree the combo is tough, but slowing the combo is more a burn advantage. I think stopping the deck from working is out of focus. So worrying about answers to pithing needle or such is not going to help burn from winning. Idea focus is play a card and make them deal with it. (this response is aimed depths ability to remove pithing needle and such cards from play)
Anyway, the main thing I want to post about is the new canopy lands that got spoiled in Modern Horizons. We now have access to up to 8 lands that we can sacrifice to draw us cards (Sunbaked Canyon and Fiery Islet), which is huge for us, as using our lands to draw extra cards shores up a major weakness with this deck. However, since they're nonbasic, make Price of Progress and Fireblast worse, and using them for mana costs us life (Negligible at first but if you get 2-3 of them out early, it adds up), I don't feel like 8 canopy lands is the right number for us. I wonder what everyone else who plays this deck thinks the right number should be?
I think red canopy lands are going to work with modern burn, unless there's a modern version of fireblast. If we really want free draws, we have Street Wraith and at one time we had Gitaxian Probe - and these cards were almost never used in burn. I think using a non-basic lands (unfetchable and unblastable) just to maybe draw a card (which cost mana to activate) is not a good idea in legacy burn.
My gut feeling is telling me that 4-6 is the sweet spot for us, but maybe someone here with more experience with the deck or more experience number crunching can give me a better or more statistically sound answer. I'm not worried about them not being fetchable, firstly because my deck is built with 20 mountains anyway, and secondly if I decide I want to put Grim Lavamancer back in my deck again, these canopy lands fuel him just like fetches do.
I doubt it... Think of this, tap a land for mana and lose another land to draw a card... When are you going to play this on turn 4. Burn is mana sensitive, every mana is counted. why not play 4 Street Wraith all you need to do is pay 2 life and discard a Street Wraith to draw a card...
Path to Exile can only work once the target is on the battlefield. The reason it specifically does not work great against Marit lage is because they get the land they want as part of their engine, and they are playing wasteland. They can see you have the ability to get a white, and path it. Sometimes they figure out a way to hide, sometimes they figure out a way to discard, sometimes they figure out a way to remove the white source. Sylvan safekeeper, thoughtseize, wasteland. Path does not even deal damage. Losing to a never ending hammer is annoying as they sit behind a constantly renewed Glacial chasm.
There is up's and down's with every silver bullet. Path seemed good because it cost 1 mana. You can leave an untapped fetchland in play (and taunt the wasteland) before popping it for the dual land.
Path is unreliable because it is a two part solution, with conditional requirements.
Part A, Then Part B, After occurrence C, provided X+Y+Z haven't happened.
Alpine Moon is just Part A
I'm not sure unreliable, is correct. If you know your up against Dark Depths, you should be playing your cards differently. Such as playing fecthlands without taping on the turn they come into play. You don't need to start channeling your burn power on turn 1.
Sure Alpine Moon is good against Dark Depths, but it won't take much for them to answer that card, especially when Alpine Moon is giving a non mana land many of any color.
Chain of Vapor is extremely similar to Path. I am not understating the strength of Path , or chain.
But I do not believe they are the universal balm , the panacea, in this case.
Chain of vapor would be incredible. . . . Except it is blue
The best thing about chain of vapor. play a Volcanic Island and your opponent thinks your playing Delver, and will assume you have a Force of Will in your hand.
I have used Searing Blood, and it was OK as a sideboard card in a couple of cases. Delver, and grixis and Elves was good.
Wasn't good when their creature did not wanna die.
I love Searing Blood and Searing Blaze almost equally. I usually main deck 4 of one or the other, or sometimes I'll mix them (2 each).
I still prefer the full 4 Swiftspears, and Lavamancers just a bit slow. I like playing Barbarian rings too, so threshold is something I value. I am happy to keep 4 land hands, if one is a Barbarian ring. And I am very happy when I see 2 lands, and one is a barbarian ring. The rings just seem good.
Depends on how you play. 4 Swiftspears are good if your into pounding. But not that good in longer games, that's where Lavamancers work.
My issue with swiftspear is... I love to play Eidolon on turn 2 (I do have my deck set up that I can drop him into play on turn 1). And if I play Swiftspear on turn 1, Eidolon on turn 2, Swifty is not being pumped until turn 3. [This is why I play with Vexing instead of Swifty].
The other problem about swifty (common problem) we have 20 lands and 12 creatures [4 Goblin Guides, 4 Swiftspears, 4 Eidolon] therefore we have 28 spells that pump swifty [remember 32 cards are non-swifty pumps and that's more then half the deck], also not every spell is played early -4 Price of Progress and -4 Fireblasts, these cards are often used later turn 3 or turn 4. So the ideal pump cards for swifty in the early game are Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Spike (which are 12 spells)... Rift Bolt kind of sucks and Skewer the Critics needs 1 mana bolt cards for you to play it before a swifty attack.
But then again, your not playing Eidolon in the early game... I think a good Swifty built has no Eidolon, but I feel that Eidolon makes burn awesome. But that's my feelings towards Swifty.
"Treated as a normal set, but twice as expensive. Why? Well...just because. Trust me, we had to hold ourselves back from charging 12$ because we know you're going to pay up no matter what!" - Business 101
It'll only be worth it if Fechlands and shocklands are in the set.
I don't understand the mental misstep comment. The card is not legal in Pioneer, and the highest price of the card is 2.19, getting a playset is not expensive.
I've got the box over the weekend and to my surprise the box set was not sealed wrapped. I'm not a major collector but I wonder what others thought about it. Or this is normal.
lol... I don't fall in to that category that believes that burn wins by turn 4 or bust.
Why a 3 mana spell is usually bad? If you consider a one card per turn draw, without cantrips (or other such help), that an opening hand must have at least 2 lands and then we assume that the next 3 draws (hopefully on turn 3) is a land card. Otherwise, you're stuck holding a 3 mana spell. In a casual game, you can afford a two land holdout for a few turn. But in a tournament setting, where winning is important, you cannot afford to take that risk.
wow... Searing cards have a good number of targets, not just delver. You have more targets with searing cards then you would have with Price of Progress, especially if you consider the high cost of dual lands.
The reasons why a good number of players move away from searing cards, it's two mana and hard to maneuver with swiftspear, especially if you play swiftspear on turn 2.
On the other hand, swiftspear is a bad burn card because half the deck don't make swiftspear grow! And there are cards you're not going to cast just to make swiftspear grow (such as an early turn fireblast or Price of Progress)... I don't play swiftspear... but I understand why players like it, it can become a heavy hitter... but then again to make swiftspear a heavy hitter you not playing Eidolon.
Burn is good when it's quick!
Interesting, Exquisite Firecraft was a good card when countertop was a deck. Nice to see it make a showing, but I'm not sure how long that will last. Usually, Searing blaze/blood is in that spot, and there is a good number of targets for those cards.
I tend to believe low cost (especially for 1 mana) high power fits into mono red. It's the key to make the deck successful. Sure haste is awesome but not every creature has haste. But *we are often limiting ours to haste bears (2/2 creatures), and sometimes get trampled over during the longer gameplay. *we as in burn players...
I think Icehide is a rotten creature compared to Goblin Guide and Swiftspear. Because it's power level is closer to those creatures and it has no haste. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if Icehide would suck if it's a 3/3 or a 3/x because it would offer additional point of attack for the lost cost of 1 mana. Sadly, the only creature that comes close to this is VD. I know most players don't like VD because of the browbeat clause, I feel that they don't understand how to make it work for their advantage. But I'm not getting into that argument because it's a bash your head against the wall battle. I get it that nobody on this form likes VD... I do see my self dropping VD if icehide was a 3/3 or a 3/x and the only thing I had to do to my deck was add snowlands.
Please note if Delver of Secrets was red, it would be a main burn creature in our burn deck! This is why I believe that RU Devler is a stronger burn deck
Agree... though if Icehide was a 3/3 or a 3/2 maybe...
I'm still not sure about the use of snow lands. I know my mono red EDH build has snow lands. Yeah, I have +30 snow mountains
Yeah, this is the controversy of the banning. There were players (pro players) that claimed that Mental Misstep turn Legacy into a coin toss format, because brainstorm was the common target. This was a major factor when any deck Burn, Goblins, Stompy, etc had a free card that could countered brainstorm on zero turn. Most decks blue decks playing brainstorm couldn't handle the early turn lost, especially against burn, goblins, stompy or such janks. It also hurt the decks because they got themseleves into playing Mental Misstep (which watered down their builds) so they can counter Mental Misstep instead of using a force of will.
Later the argument was switched to everybody was playing 4 Mental Missteps in a deck and we have 56 other cards.
Personally, I enjoyed the Mental Misstep legacy format because I don't agree that we should have solid consistence in magic. But I'm not a pro player, even though I've been playing this game since 1996... On the other hand, I believe pro magic players are worst, more worse those investing in Magic cards. Because they see the game in a gambling perspective, even though they don't want to admit they do, otherwise, Mental Misstep wouldnt be banned.
Anyway that's my feelings about the banning...
Because players cannot handle getting their brainstorm countered on turn 1. That's the reason why the card was banned.
Yeah, pithing needle is a good card. Agree the combo is tough, but slowing the combo is more a burn advantage. I think stopping the deck from working is out of focus. So worrying about answers to pithing needle or such is not going to help burn from winning. Idea focus is play a card and make them deal with it. (this response is aimed depths ability to remove pithing needle and such cards from play)
I think red canopy lands are going to work with modern burn, unless there's a modern version of fireblast. If we really want free draws, we have Street Wraith and at one time we had Gitaxian Probe - and these cards were almost never used in burn. I think using a non-basic lands (unfetchable and unblastable) just to maybe draw a card (which cost mana to activate) is not a good idea in legacy burn.
I doubt it... Think of this, tap a land for mana and lose another land to draw a card... When are you going to play this on turn 4. Burn is mana sensitive, every mana is counted. why not play 4 Street Wraith all you need to do is pay 2 life and discard a Street Wraith to draw a card...
I like Light Up the Stage in modern so it might be a good card in Legacy.
Yep, I sort of said that too
There is up's and down's with every silver bullet. Path seemed good because it cost 1 mana. You can leave an untapped fetchland in play (and taunt the wasteland) before popping it for the dual land.
I'm not sure unreliable, is correct. If you know your up against Dark Depths, you should be playing your cards differently. Such as playing fecthlands without taping on the turn they come into play. You don't need to start channeling your burn power on turn 1.
Sure Alpine Moon is good against Dark Depths, but it won't take much for them to answer that card, especially when Alpine Moon is giving a non mana land many of any color.
The best thing about chain of vapor. play a Volcanic Island and your opponent thinks your playing Delver, and will assume you have a Force of Will in your hand.
I love Searing Blood and Searing Blaze almost equally. I usually main deck 4 of one or the other, or sometimes I'll mix them (2 each).
Depends on how you play. 4 Swiftspears are good if your into pounding. But not that good in longer games, that's where Lavamancers work.
My issue with swiftspear is... I love to play Eidolon on turn 2 (I do have my deck set up that I can drop him into play on turn 1). And if I play Swiftspear on turn 1, Eidolon on turn 2, Swifty is not being pumped until turn 3. [This is why I play with Vexing instead of Swifty].
The other problem about swifty (common problem) we have 20 lands and 12 creatures [4 Goblin Guides, 4 Swiftspears, 4 Eidolon] therefore we have 28 spells that pump swifty [remember 32 cards are non-swifty pumps and that's more then half the deck], also not every spell is played early -4 Price of Progress and -4 Fireblasts, these cards are often used later turn 3 or turn 4. So the ideal pump cards for swifty in the early game are Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Spike (which are 12 spells)... Rift Bolt kind of sucks and Skewer the Critics needs 1 mana bolt cards for you to play it before a swifty attack.
But then again, your not playing Eidolon in the early game... I think a good Swifty built has no Eidolon, but I feel that Eidolon makes burn awesome. But that's my feelings towards Swifty.
It'll only be worth it if Fechlands and shocklands are in the set.