General comment for everyone: I just updated the Matchups/Sideboarding section of the primer. Think of the sideboard suggestions as card ideas for constructing a sideboard rather than as a sideboard guide. Let me know if you have suggestions or criticisms.
Hello again, just looking for some deck tech, what do you guys think about Satyr Firedancer in a heavy creature meta?
How creature heavy is creature heavy? It's a very fragile creature itself and it requires itself to be in play and then other cards to be cast before it affects the board at all. I think you're probably better off using Searing effects to do what you need to do.
Random question: how does it stack up against ponza? My brother has been playing that for over a year, I know any modern event I play has a chance of running into him lol.
I don't think Burn is in good shape against Ponza and BBE made it worse. It's very tough for Burn to deal with the resource denial that comes out of Ponza.
I actually disagree with your assessment of the ponza match up. I have played the match up several times and fine it really easy to win. it always seems like if you sequence you spells correctly after board you are really likely to win.
What matchup are you talking about? Skullcrack is just a player only Lightning Strike if your opponent never plays lifegain. Searing Blaze has the possibility to kill something, and is otherwise a Lightning Strike to their face.
the match up I am talking about is Grixis Death shadow. in the match up searing blaze literally only kills Snapcaster mage. why on gods green earth would I prioritize sideboard out skullcrack before searing blaze.
I recently read the sideboard guide in the primer, in it it suggests that we should take out skull crack, is this a mistake. sure skull crack is not great in the match up but its still better than searing blaze. why on gods green earth would you take out cracks before blaze.
after looking at the data that has been produced by elconquistador1985. it makes me wonder if Destructive revelry is worth it anymore. if you look at the Tldr section it becomes clear that with the printing of brutality that leyline is being played less and less. to the point where leyline is now seeing only fringe play from fringe decks. we also see that some of the decks running leyline in their sideboard are already so bad for us that revelry is not impactful enough to change the match up by itself. to me the paradigm example of this is the ad-nauseum match up. often times we will have to destroy multiple artifact and enchantments in order to survive through to the next turn.
I am coming back to the deck after a brief hiatus from modern, why are people cutting grim lavamancer. is it that it dies more often now or is there some other principled reason I am missing? I feel like if we drop lavamancer we end up with hands where we cannot curve out effectively and play multiple spells a turn. making the deck slower overall. is there a reason we want to slow our gameplan down?
also you never really want to board in destructive revelry against vial decks. due to the card being too narrow. and if your opponent doesn't end up drawing the vial then the card is dead
I have been struggling against decks that play collective brutality. is there any good way to play through the card or are we just hoping the meta game stays varied enough so that people cannot play the card in large numbers? it seems like atarka's command is really good to battle against collective brutality. since you can cast it in response and deal damage and save your dude. or you could play another land and another burn spell and force them to take what you want. am I just wrong? thoughts?
I'm not sure if I dislike playing against brutality or tks more as a burn player I'm all ears if someone has a good answer to brutality. I do like command though.
one possibility is that we could ruined halo the collective brutality. the problem with this discussion is that it seems like no deck is actually running enough of the card to really require action. the card really has a short shelf life when it comes to the amount of value you can get off the card. if you don't hit the card on turn two I feel like the card loses so much impact that it isn't really worth playing. at that point, you probably have better things to do. so on one hand, you want to play multiple brutalities. but on the other hand, they lose so much value that you never really want to draw it late game. I seems like this is the very basic thing that a lot of pros are missing about the card when it comes to playing it against burn
I have been struggling against decks that play collective brutality. is there any good way to play through the card or are we just hoping the meta game stays varied enough so that people cannot play the card in large numbers? it seems like atarka's command is really good to battle against collective brutality. since you can cast it in response and deal damage and save your dude. or you could play another land and another burn spell and force them to take what you want. am I just wrong? thoughts?
I understand, so basically what we turn into a control burn when facing this deathshadow decks?
So um post board I can bring in some answers. Note: I have NOT had a single face-off with deathshadow decks pre/during/post GP brisbane but I'm looking at the 8x disruptions they have and don't quite like it: 4x thoughsieze and 4x inquisition of kozilek, sometimes collective brutality comes in post-board? Based on your experiences will holding back our burn spells topdeck/replenish faster than they can disrupt our hand?
Cheers
Not so much a "control" deck, more of a reactive deck that wants to play the mid-late-game at instant speed. Figuring out how much discipline to have on turn 1 when you don't draw a creature seems important. You do still want to be able to apply some pressure to your opponent's life total really early (to keep the game short), but once their life total gets to about 12 I'd be trying to set up 4 spells (two at the end of their turn (or Rift Bolt the previous turn), two after untapping) to end the game). Granted, this doesn't always happen due to discard, but that's the type of kill you want to get, and they're going to lower their own life total once they feel like they need to enable their Deaths' Shadow to end the game as well, that can open another window for a kill. Learning how and when to do this is going to take some time, but this is the way that I've won games against the deck.
As for playing against their discard, there are a couple of things you can do. If you have more lands than you need in play, don't play them. I've seen discard spells blanked a few times. Sometimes you are going to end up with a mitt full of 2 mana spells, and that's tough to deal with against discard. That's one of the reasons that I'm trying to find a few more spots for 1 mana cards (and why I run 1 Shard Volley in the deck.
For reference, I'm running this, similar to the GP Van top 8 list +/- two cards, and slightly different fetch lands because I'm a crazy person.:
I used to think that Atarka's Command was a must, but I've cooled off on my opinion of it, because running 3 x Inspiring Vantage makes it so you only need to deal only 0-4 damage to yourself to set up the proper manabase turn 2 (R/W land + Mountain), instead of 4-6 damage playing/fetching two untapped shock lands.
Call me crazy, but I think currently that 3 Searing Blaze and 3 Skullcrack are adequate. I've just found recently that I just don't want to see two of those cards in my hand at the same time.
I do not like Rest in Peace in Burn anywhere near as much as Relic of Progenitus, because relic cycles for gas. I know RIP is stronger hate, but it doesn't really server the goal of the deck. In the case of the Expertise Breaking // Entering deck, I just board out all my creatures so that Kari Zev's Expertise doesn't have a target, which is I like the board being set up with 13 non-creature cards. Kataki's good against Affinity, but he doesn't always win games, and I'd just rather live with my 4 x Destructive Revelry and my bad affinity matchup.
As for Collective Brutality, I've seen it used most commonly in the kill a creature and discard instant/sorcery modes. The drain is contrary to their game plan.
my list is also really close to yours. the main difference is that I have -1 searing blaze +1 skull crack and I have +1 grim lavamancer. what does everyone think of the 61 cards idea? do you think it does enough to limit varience?
I am increasingly finding him disapointing. I used to run 2 Lavamancers mainboard but recently cutted both from the deck, and added a 4th Path to Exile on the sideboard to improve the matchups against creature-based decks. He shines against infect, elves and the mirror. However, on all other matchups, I think he is too much slow. Do you guys think it is still worth it to mainboard him?
I find lavamancer is a necessary evil. if we cut it our curve is going to hurt and it will be harder to achieve our goal. plus at this point, the removal is so good that all of our creatures have gotten worse.
I actually disagree. from the testing (albeit limited) I have had against the deck it feels very easy. game one they have to play very reserved after learning that you are burn, otherwise you will just kill them from powering up their death shadows. game two they play out more conservatively and try and rip your hands with discard. to me, the key to the match up is to play the game really slowly and pick a turn where you can kill them in a single hit.
I would rather cut the Boros charm rather than the Rift Bolt. Rift bolt allows you to interact with their creatures and punish them on the play for not having an Aether Vial on turn one. you also gain a bunch of fringe benefits for boarding out your Boros charms. for instance, you lower your curve. which has the effect of making both their spell pierces and their curse catches worse. it also makes their spreading seas worse because there are now less white spells in your deck that you can't tap out for in response to their sea's effects. How you end up playing the matchup also effects how both decks race. I usually just focus on killing their lords while making them trade of creatures
but haven't you played into my argument even further by making one of the criteria that the card has to do damage. where we think each card has to do damage because we miss understand the philosophy of fire not because that is actually burns true identity. burn was built on the theoretical conception that each card must do two damage. but in the affinity match up we are not really the aggressor. sure we are racing but after board we turn into the removal deck. so at that point the theoretical conception of ourselves seems to become moot. also when i was talking about the cards mana cost I was referring to the fact that you needed green mana to play the spell rather than the fact that it was 2cmc
But why play a card like disenchant if you can have the same effect + 2dmg for the same cmc. Just so that you save 2 dmg for not splashing green a colour that also provides atarkas command (and nacatl)?
That just makes no sense unless you play in a very narrow meta
because you can splash a different color instead of green which can offer you more flexibility or it strengthens your overall strategy. an example of this would be black because it gives you a better curve. or you get more flexibility from the ability to destroy an artifact and an enchantment at the same time.
I actually disagree with your assessment of the ponza match up. I have played the match up several times and fine it really easy to win. it always seems like if you sequence you spells correctly after board you are really likely to win.
the match up I am talking about is Grixis Death shadow. in the match up searing blaze literally only kills Snapcaster mage. why on gods green earth would I prioritize sideboard out skullcrack before searing blaze.
after looking at the data that has been produced by elconquistador1985. it makes me wonder if Destructive revelry is worth it anymore. if you look at the Tldr section it becomes clear that with the printing of brutality that leyline is being played less and less. to the point where leyline is now seeing only fringe play from fringe decks. we also see that some of the decks running leyline in their sideboard are already so bad for us that revelry is not impactful enough to change the match up by itself. to me the paradigm example of this is the ad-nauseum match up. often times we will have to destroy multiple artifact and enchantments in order to survive through to the next turn.
one possibility is that we could ruined halo the collective brutality. the problem with this discussion is that it seems like no deck is actually running enough of the card to really require action. the card really has a short shelf life when it comes to the amount of value you can get off the card. if you don't hit the card on turn two I feel like the card loses so much impact that it isn't really worth playing. at that point, you probably have better things to do. so on one hand, you want to play multiple brutalities. but on the other hand, they lose so much value that you never really want to draw it late game. I seems like this is the very basic thing that a lot of pros are missing about the card when it comes to playing it against burn
I find lavamancer is a necessary evil. if we cut it our curve is going to hurt and it will be harder to achieve our goal. plus at this point, the removal is so good that all of our creatures have gotten worse.