I haven't played Merfolk in a while. I've been on either Grixis Delver or Burn, but decided to go back to Fish after repeatedly feeling that if you don't t1 a Delver then the deck sucks. Before the tournament I joked with a friend about the list, noting how thrown together a lot of the numbers were. Tec Edge main was especially suspect, and I said I'd count out the times it helped vs. the times I was caught off blue. I didn't own Minamo or Oboro, and would've played both if I'd found them for trade. I also would've played second Spellskite if I had found it before I left home (it was hiding in an EDH deck ><).
Round 1 I crushed a newer Soul Sisters player. When I realized he didn't know that my creatures triggered Soul's attendant the round was in the bag.
Round 2 I took down Infect. We have answers for every threat they cast. Seas their inkmoth. Tidebind their noble/glistener. Snag and Dismember as 1 mana removal that ruins their whole day. Spell pierce for days.
Round 3 I shuffled up against a kindly mono Blue Tron player. A random deck check saw that he had left a sb card in his main. Maindeck tec edge breaks up Tron in the one game we played, but it was overkill. He was dead to rights either way.
At 3-0 I sit across from a friend playing Bogles. We briefly consider drawing, but I want to play it out. The winner can double draw into top 8. G1 I get crushed, but Chalice on 1 ends any chance he had in G2. G3 we both mull and I keep a spotty hand with countermagic. He has a bogle but no first strike and trades some umbras off in chump block mode. I'm able to counter the important auras (mostly Daybreak Coronet). I tick a vial to 4 with Master of Waves in hand and draw spreading seas for turn. I've got board control but am at 3 life. He has only a dryad arbor, a plains and a forest on board, and I know he has 2 rancors in hand, and a card he didn't play last turn. I draw spreading seas. If he draws a third green source he can double Rancor his Dryad Arbor and I'm forced to trade my board just blocking. I draw a spreading seas and am left with a decision. If I spreading seas his forest he can't double rancor. But if I spreading seas his Dryad Arbor and he doesn't know that it's still a creature... I take the riskier play and spreading seas the Dryad Arbor. He asks, "So it's an Island?" I pause for a second. "Yes," I say. It is. It's a 1/1 Land Creature - Island Dryad. He untaps, plays a horizon canopy, and taps his Arbor to sac the Canopy and draw a card. Conscience catches up to me, conveniently after he taps the Arbor. "Let's call a judge," I say, and I let the judge explain what I already knew: that Arbor is a still creature. He has his next turn to draw something, but missing that attack lets me build up my board, and I swing for lethal the turn before he draws Coronet. I feel a bit of a pang, but in a match for top 8, whoever the person across the table is is your opponent. Ethical? I answered his question honestly and played to win. So did I call a judge to cover a guilty conscience? Not sure.
I double draw into the 4th seed. I could've played for 1st seed in round 6 but decide not to rely on breakers in the case of a loss.
My opponent is a strong player that i've played against a few times in the past. He's on Abzan. Typical dumb Abzan. He comments that he's tired of top 8ing with his brews and falling short, so he decided to go with a regular ol' tier 1 deck this time. Top seed is on the play. My hand is: Vial, Vial, Island, Island, Mutavault, Merrow, Merrow. Ugh. I tank for a long time but keep it. He mulls. 4 out of my first 6 draws are lands. His 6 thoughtsiezes, decays, dismembers, lingering souls and Rhinos me into submission.
Game 2 my hand is 3 2-mana lords, some countermagic, 1 island and 1 tectonic edge. UGH. Don't do me like this T. Edge! I keep it and my opponent mulls to 5. It takes me a few extra turns to hit double blue, but I eventually get it going and win a game that was way closer than it needed to be. 13 blue sources not looking so hot...
Game 3 I'm on the draw. My hand is a good one that lacks anything tricky: just lords and masters (no counters, vials, or removal) and my opponent mulls to 6. Turns out, his hand was thoughtseize, Maelstrom, and 4 lands. His draws were nuts. He lands a turn 2 dark confidant. I draw a dismember and skip playing a lord to take it out. I get 3 lords on board, and am going to threaten lethal the next turn. He topdecks his 1-of Damnation. Board gone. I recover with a Master of Waves, with 2 more Master of Waves in hand. He plays his 6th land. Maelstrom Pulses and plays his topdecked 1-of Choke. Choke. My board is 3 locked islands and a mutavault. My lack of nonbasics does me in. He rips a siege rhino into a lingering souls and that's all he wrote. Did he topdeck his 2 perfect 1-ofs in a row? Yep. Would I have won the match if i'd built my deck better? Yep. It was a tough beat, but sometimes it rolls that way.
Might tweek the numbers in the board a bit, but that's the gist. Kira is better when there are lots of lightning bolts running around. Dismember in the main is fine, but there's lots of Ad Nauseam and other combo going around, and I like going to Spell Pierce in the main, esp if I cut Kira. Darkslick helps vs. choke and let's me put E. Explosives on 2 and take less damage from dismember. Relic split feels better, and I like Monastery Siege in the side in order to grind.
Given that Chandra, Roaring Flame has the correct date, I think it's possible that the unflipped side is a fake or a mockup and the flipped side is real.
Edit: Why are people saying that the "2014" is a JPG error? Zoom in... It's definitely a 4...
This is one of the vaguest things I've shared on a forum, and I'm not trying to pretend like it's definitive, but I'm calling Zen fetches 99% confirmed. I have a friend who sells cards to foreign countries frequently. He sometimes gets information about unreleased sets, kind of an insider trading thing. Usually he's good about not sharing any information with anyone else, but recently we were out drinking as a group and he let slip a little too much info. Specifically he lamented having bought a bunch of cards right before he found out what would be reprinted soon. The thing is, we happened to know that his big order of cards, thousands of dollars worth, was almost all scalding tarns and misty's.
Make of this what you will. I'm not going to pretend like some dude at a forum relating something his friend said when they were drunk is confirmation, but if you were there and knew the people involved I reckon you'd be as convinced as I am.
Hey, I've been seeing 2 Nissas in a lot of sideboards. What do people bring it in against? What do people cut for it? While the card seems solid against control strategies, I'm unsure of which matchups it improves enough to justify 2 SB slots. It seems marginal vs. Bx devotion/enchantments or the mirror.
I ultimated a liliana vess, which almost milled me out because i got back 2 necromancer's assistants. So on the last possible turn I swing with about 90 power. End up doing 55 damage to my opponent. He was at 63 life because of a double activated Soul of Theros. That card isn't even remotely beatable without removal.
So last Friday I was planning to play splinter twin at a ptq the next day. My buddy shows up at my house to test and says, "hold everything. I broke the format." I'm not going to give out the whole list just yet, but basically he added4 goblin guide and 3 molten rain to the main deck of UR Delver. It's been insane. I misplayed, losing 2 matches that the deck would've won if I had played right (I snap bolted instead of molten raining and got emrakul'd by tron) but I still finished the ptq 6-3. I played 2 four rounders this week, and went 6-2. So so far I'm 12-5 with the deck. Goblin guide makes you much faster. In this build you often find yourself turn 2 mainphasing snapcaster with pay 2 for gitaxian probe. Far more aggressive. Having another tier-1 one drop could make this deck a contender again.
Except that for the gap between Soul and Spirit there's tons of names that fit . Sov- things like Sovereign fit, as well as countless words that start spa- or spe- And there only need to be two. Spatial Drift or Spearpoint or Speeding or Spiffy...
What evidence do you have Valarch? I'm curious. I believe that a Liliana of the Veil reprint would surely send her prices down. Even though demand would go up, she's a $70 card currently. She's a casual favorite. Hell, I only own one of her, don't play her in anything 60 carded, and I'm utterly unwilling to trade her. Constructed demand would go up, but I believe her stock is vastly buoyed by casual demand, and I believe that casual demand would stay about level.
At the same time, I don't have a control case. Thoughtseize, IE, was opened 8 times as frequently as a mythic, but I still believe it's price would sink, perhaps to the 40-50 range, if it was mythic.
I noticed something that lead me to post here: 5/8 decks in the scg colombus open top 8 ran goyf. 20 out of a possible 32. THose are some pretty oppressive numbers. Of course numbers alone aren't a reason for ban, as Brainstorm is far more widespread and yes because it's a fun/skilltesting card to play it has too much support to be banned. But what's fun about tarmogoyf? Not only is he a dumb vanilla beater, he's over $100. Cost isn't a reason for ban, but I think that his existence in the format is an overall negative effect. His presence is not oppressive in the way that vengevine was, but he/she/it is an auto-add/overpowered at his cost creature in the way that deathrite was for modern.
But even though he was in 5/8 top 8 lists in the open I should check myself, because there were two decks in the top 16 that could've run tarmo but didnt. 2 Different Rug lists played 3-4 young Pyromancer in the Goyf slot. So instead of 9/16, Goyf was only in 7/16 lists. Out of the 8 Invitational decks that went x-1 or better this past weekend, Goyf was only in 2. I don't think that Goyf should be instabanned just yet, but I am leaning towards the conclusion that Goyf's presence in Legacy is not healthy or conducive to a fun format. However, my fear is that taking away a tempo beatstick would give too much power back to combo players. Legacy is a delicate balance, so it's hard to say what is best for the format. Thoughts on Goyf?
*Deep Breath* Below is a tournament report. It's the longest thing I've ever posted on these forums. I wrote it over a few hours today, and the tournament was yesterday, so I feel like I've included the funnest stories from each game yesterday. Before I launch into it though, I'd like to respond to the Dragon's claw question from a few pages back. How many you should play depends on how mandatory it is that you draw it. For the purpose of clean math, I've decided that "having Dragon's Claw" should be defined by having Dragon's claw in your hand by turn 3 (on the draw, or turn 4 play). This doesn't factor in mulligans or having 2 lands to cast it, but should be fine for our purposes.
If we SB 1 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 16.7% of the time.
If we SB 2 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 30.7% of the time.
If we SB 3 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 42.7% of the time.
If we SB 4 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 52.8% of the time.
Let's say we SB 2 of them and we're willing to mulligan our first hand if we don't have it. The odds of drawing it in our first hand or mulling and finding it on time in our second are 49.8%
This data was found with a hypergeometric calculator http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx That gave us a 22.1% chance of finding 2 specific cards having seen 7, and a 28% chance of finding 2 specific cards having seen 9. So .221+(1-.221)(.28)= 49.8% of finding 1 of our 2 cards if we mulligan to look for it.
And now, the tourney report:
Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a full tournament report, but I took pretty good notes at a PTQ last Saturday, and figured I would write up my account. I played Modern Burn all of last season. It was a Rbw list, with 4 deathrite shaman. I ran it at 2 PTQs and a Grand Prix to a combined record of 20-10. I’ve been working on putting together a few other decks, but Burn is the deck I know best, so I decided to bring it to the PTQ.
As you can see, the list is 3 fetches short. Gemstone was great all tournament, and mana wasn’t the issue… The issue was something else entirely…
Round 1 – Tarmo Twin
Round one I’m seated across from my opponent and the judges announce they’ll be picking up our deck lists. My opponent does a final double check of his list, and he holds it up so that the back of the page is facing me. However, with the heavy pen he had used his list was completely readable through the illumined page… I felt a little skeezy, but made use of the free information. I couldn’t see everything, but I read 4 remand, 2 cryptic, 1 dispel, 4 snapcaster… Before he folded the list up. There’s a few different decks that could play those cards, but my thoughts were UR Delver or UR twin with the possibility of Scapeshift.
He wins the die roll, and after a few turns of burning him he plays a deceiver, tapping my Goblin Guide precombat. In my second main I have 3 lands in play and my hand is mountain, Searing Blaze, Magma Jet and Lava Spike with my opponent at 7 Life. My opponent has 4 lands in play, so if I aim my burn at him, he can twin off his next turn. I play the mountain and I searing blaze and Magma jet his exarch. I see a Goblin Guide and a Lightning Bolt. I tank for a while, but put the Guide on the bottom and Bolt on top, so as to dead his removal. On his turn, he plays a land and passes. He plays pestermite on my precombat step, again tapping my guide, leaving up 2 mana. With my Lava Spike and the Bolt I had scryd, I thought I had the win in the bag. Remand does nothing. However, he has his 1-of Dispel for my lightning bolt, stabilizing at 1 life. He untaps, topdecks Splinter Twin and wins… Tough beats. Turns out if I’d left the Goblin guide on top, I would have won. But UR Twin plays 4 bolts, and I knew he only had 1 dispel and no mana leaks in his build. Turns out my extra info did me in. Karmic justice?
SB
+3 Rakdos Charm
+2 Torpor Orb
-4 Vexing devil (They can bolt it and tap it for days. Very rare for it to connect, but it is better on the play than the draw)
-1 Flames of the Blood Hand (no lifegain, 3 cmc is awk vs. Remand)
Game 2 I mulligan and keep Lava Spike, Searing Blaze, Eidolon and 3 lands. After showing me no green game 1, it turns out he’s Tarmo Twin. He turn 2s a goyf, and on turn 3 he bolts my Eidolon. This puts him down to 13, but Tarmo is a 5/6 with the enchantment-creature Eidolon hitting the bin. I draw 3 lands in 4 draw steps and drop the match.
If I’d known he was Tarmo Twin I would’ve sided:
+3 Rakdos Charm
+1 Molten Rain
-4 Vexing Devil (VD is esp. bad vs. the Goyf version)
Round 2 – Ad Nauseam
I’m seated across from a local Portland ringer named Oliver. I knew from before the match that he’s playing Ad Nauseam combo, so I tell him I’m on Burn. We lament our bad beats Game 1 and get to business. I win the die roll, and jokingly ask him if he wants to go to Game 2. He laughs and responds that he has some incidentally good cards vs. Burn. I keep an alright hand, and get to business lava spiking. He suspends Lotus Bloom on turn 1. I Magme jet on turn 2, bottoming the completely dead Searing Blaze and he finds Ad Nauseam with Peer Through Depths on turn 2. I have 3 Skullcracks in hand, so I mistakenly thought I couldn’t lose. I thought that Angel’s Grace prevents damage, but it doesn’t. But Angel’s Grace isn’t cast at any point in the match. Instead, he lands a Turn 3 Phyrexian Unlife. I read the card a few times. Huh… Turn 4 his Bloom comes off suspend, and he Ad Nauseams for the win, drawing his deck and pitching lands to lightning Storm.
+4 Destrutive Revelry
-4 Searing Blaze
Game 2 I keep, Eidolon, Lava Spike x2, Magma Jet, Bump and 2 land. I consider mulliganing to look for Revelry because I expect a combo deck to play Leyline, but the hand and Eidolon are too good for that. On turn 0 he lays down a Gemstone Cavern and a Leyline… Ouch. My Eidolon ends up doing 15 Damage by its lonesome. I Magma Jet myself twice, taking 4 each time, in order to dig for my revelries. He lands a Phyrexian Unlife on turn 3 again. He Tolaria Wests for Pact of Negation, and Ad Nauseams with Counter backup. Double Revelry would have won the game on the spot, but it wasn’t to be. All of a sudden I’m 0-4 in games and out of contention for top 8. I had already planned to play 8 rounds no matter what, So I swallow my pride, step outside for a breath of air, and clear my head for R3.
Round 3. -BYE-
I’m seated at table 0 and I eviscerate my opponent in 0 quick games. He never had a chance. Easiest match of magic I’ve ever won. 1-2 record. 0-4 games.
Round 4 MIRROR
The mirror match is a point of pride. My opponent wins the die roll, and turn 1s a Vexing Devil. I have a Searing Blaze in my hand, so if I’d won the die roll I could’ve crushed him. Instead, he burns me out pretty rapidly, searing blood killing a Goblin Guide. Losing the die roll loses me the game.
He seems to be Mono Red, but he has fetches for a possible splash. I realize that I have no sb cards, and I miss my BRW build that included lightning helixes… Game 2 starts perfectly. I have a creatureless but burn heavy hand. He Turn 1s a Vexing Devil again, and I Searing Blaze it, putting me way ahead. I quickly get him down to 2 5 life, but at that point I’m almost out of burn. He resolves an Eidolon of the Great Revels, but I lightning bolt him in response, putting him to 2. I’d never seen a burn list run a 4 cmc spell, so at this point he can’t cast any spells. I draw and cast a vexing devil, with only lands left in my hand. He has 5 or so cards, but can’t cast any of them and he can’t attack me. I can’t attack him either, so we’re stalemated til I draw a burn spell. I draw 3 lands in a row, just passing the turn and having him pass it back. It was surreal. I draw a Bump in the Night, and for a second I consider decking him instead of casting it. I decide not to tempt fate, and cast the bump for the win.
He had missed the Eidolon trigger when I cast Vexing Devil. It wasn’t relevant, but I include that to say that you should ALWAYS KEEP TRACK OF YOUR TRIGGERS. Seriously. If you don’t the gods will smite you.
Game 3 he’s back on the play and frankly I’m scared. I side in 1 Destructive Revelry and take out 1 Eidolon. He plays eidolon himself and it’s a risky play because he has searing blood as well as searing blaze. My revelry can potentially dome him after killing an eidolon. I keep an ok hand, but immediately regret siding in the Revelry: Vexing Devil, Skullcrack, Bump, lightning Bolt, Destructive Revelry, Mountain, Blackcleave. Revelry stares back at me with no green source, but I decide to keep anyhow. I have 8 green sources, so maybe I can hit one. After my Turn 1 Vexing devil is let resolve, I’m worried. He has the turn 2 Searing Blaze and it’s my turn to be put in a deep hole right off the bat. He casts a Shrine of Burning Rage, and suddenly the format of the game is altered. If I can hit a green source and revelry when he doesn’t have 3 mana up then I can get back into the game. I draw a Magma jet, and see a fetch! His hand seems light on action, as he just passes his turn leaving up 3. Is he playing around artifact hate? On my turn I play the fetch and pass. He bolts me at end of turn, ticks the shrine at upkeep, already up to 4 counters. He Lava Spikes me down to 10 life, ticking the Shrine to 5 counters. I hold my breath. If he doesn’t play a land….. “End step” he says. I exhale, “response, sac the fetch, get a tapped stomping Ground.” “Stomping Ground?” he stutters. I untap and Revelry the Shrine. He groans and shakes his head, but I’m not out of the fire just yet. He bolts me down to 7, draws a spike, and plays it, but I’m pretty sure he’s out of action. I draw and play my 1-of Eidolon and am able to beat in for the win.
He’s a nice guy, so I decide not to tell him that Revelry and Eidolon were 1-ofs.
2-2 (2-5 games…)
Round 5 – Jund
Jund is a pretty good matchup, and I don’t have much trouble burning him out game 1. He damages himself quite a bit with his mana base. He gets out a courser, but I’m able to skullcrack him on two consecutive upkeeps to prevent the lifegain. I’m down to 1 lightning bolt with him at 5, and I draw a land. On his turn, he gains 1 from courser, going up to 6, and is able to hit me for 5, down to 6. Fortunately, I topdeck a burn spell and lock up the game.
+2 Revelry (great vs. Courser, there best card vs. us and sometimes they side in lifegain swords.)
Game 2 had a really strange moment. I keep a good hand, but he has turn 3 courser, turn 4 courser, turn 5 Ooze. I had a Revelry for one of the coursers, and he’s a little tight on mana, so I’ve gotten him down to 6. I’m almost locked out at this point, but if I hit consecutive burn spells and he doesn’t have a land drop I have a shot. I topdeck and play a Bump in the Night putting my opponent to 3, but he reaches his hand out and says, nice, you got it. For some reason, in the heat of it, I refuse his handshake and say, “no no, you’re at 6.” I like to think that I would’ve done it differently if I were still in contention for top 8, but honestly it was a reflex. Turns out he was looking at his life total for game 1 and thought any burn was lethal. A judge later told me that he had really conceded whether I accepted it or not. Conceding is one thing in magic that you can do at any time and it doesn’t use the stack, so your opponent can’t respond. Funny. At any rate, I win Game 3 pretty handily.
Round 6 – Merfolk
I win the die roll and swing with a turn 1 Goblin Guide. My opponenst says “I go to 18.” Technically you’re supposed to resolve the trigger first, but I assume my opponent is shortcutting, and reach for my pen. My opponent reaches for his deck, but instead of flipping the top card he rapidly draws it, plays a land, and passes. It was so quick that I was taken aback. “One sec,” I say, “I have a judge question.” I find a judge and ask him whose responsibility the trigger is. We come back to the table, and my opponent admits that he did everything quickly and that I had never passed the turn. However, by updating my life before the trigger, I had made it clear that I had missed the trigger. Because it’s a detrimental trigger, I get a game warning and my opponent gets to choose if they want to put the trigger on the stack. He does, and flips a Cosi’s Trickster. My opponent apologizes for the warning (which isn’t a big deal to me, I just make sure to announce the trigger for the rest of the tourney), but clearly wasn’t too put off because he had the trigger go on the stack after he had drawn during his own first main. He plays an Aether Vial and passes back. Fish…
My guide beats charge in, but my opponent has a turn 2 lord. Here’ where I commit my first major misplay of the tournament. I magma jet my opponent and then swing for two and my opponent blocks with the lord. Duh. If I jet his lord and swing then he takes the same two damage but I still have a guide. Pretty rookie stuff, but I chalk it up to my 3 hours sleep and keep going on. A few turns late my opponent gets out a big army, and swings for 12 damage, moving me from 17 to 5. He’s been conspicuously representing Spell Pierce for a few turns now. At his end step he’s at 4 life with 1 blue mana untapped. I have 3 lands in play, with a skullcrack and a Magma Jet in hand. If he doesn’t have Spell pierce then I win, and if he does have it (or spell snare) I would rather have him counter the skullcrack, as I’ll need the Jet to dig for a 1 cmc burn spell. At his end step I cast the skullcrack, and sure enough, he spell pierces. In untap, and upkeep Magma jet him, putting him to 2 life. There are 11 cards in my library that will kill him, and about 47 total cards remaining. After the match, a hypergeometric distribution calculator tells me that there’s a 56% chance that I hit the spell in my top 3 cards. My top 2 cards are lands. I bottom them, and the next card is rift bolt so I lose the game.
Game 2 isn’t so close. He has negates, dispels, vial and plenty of lords. I draw lands and fall to 3-3 (4-8 games.)
Round 7 – RUG Twin
My twin opponent is a gentleman from Canada and the nicest/funnest person I met all day. I don’t remember game 1 much, just that I had enough burn and had the Searing Blaze+fetch for his end of turn Pestermite.
Game 2 I keep a hand with 2 Rakdos Charm and 2 lands. I start to get scared because I’m still not drawing lands a few turns in and haven’t put any pressure on him. 2 lands is not enough because end of turn Exarch can tap the land, playing around the Rakdos Charm. However, it turns out that it doesn’t matter…. My opponent draws all 4 of the Islands in his deck and never draws another land of any color. He gets 5 creatures in play, exarchs, mites, and snapcasters, but never the mountains he needs for his twin. This is almost a problem because he starts laying down some pretty serious beats with his awkward army. However, My charms are still good for 5 damage each when I decide to run them out, and he dies on 4 Islands.
4-3 (6-8 games) Top 64 get backs. A win will lock me, but a loss might get me there anyway.
Round 8. Zoo.
The most die roll dependent match in history… He wins Game 1 with his 3rd lightning bolt the turn before I would’ve been able to unleash 9 points of burn to get him for exactsies.
Game 2 I have a Searing Blaze for his t1 Nacatl, and he deals some damage to himself with fetches and shocks. Still, I’m running out of gas and he gets down a large tarmogoyf vs. my Eidolon. He almost has me for lethal and I need another turn to find some burn with my magma jet. He casts Pillar of Flame on my Eidolon, pumping Tarmogoyf with an Enchantment in the graveyard, and swings with kird ape, goblin guide and Gofy. I have to consider whether I should Shard Volley a kird ape in order to make a Lightning Bolt from him nonlethal as his attack would put me down to 3… Wait, what? Pillar of Flame exiles, so Eidolon isn’t in the graveyard. We correct this, and instead his attack puts me to 4. I burn him out after Guide cleared a land away from the top of my deck, and he shows me the almost lethal bolt.
Game 3 he has a turn 5 kill through a searing blaze and I have what would’ve been a turn 5 kill of my own. Zoo is a tough matchup for me as I have no Sideboard.
I finish the tournament a disappointing 4-4, with a 7-10 record in games. Crushingly, I was 65th out of 210 players… Missing prizes by 1 place. I felt that I landed on the wrong side of variance a few times and I certainly didn’t win the pairings lottery. I didn’t play against Pod or Tron, both of which I prey upon. At the same time, I didn’t play against UWR or against soul sisters, decks that Burn can rarely beat. I went 1-1 in aggro matchups which is good considering I lost both die rolls. I went 1-1 vs. Tarmo twin, which is a much harder matchup than UR Twin. I lost to Merfolk which I usually beat, and I lost to Ad Nauseam, which is nigh impossible to beat unless they sputter out and beat themselves. My main feeling about burn in Modern is that it’s a fair deck in a format dominated by broken decks. Given perfect card availability I would play UR Twin, and may piece together a budget version (missing 3 $$$ scalding tarns) for the rest of the Modern season. I love burn as a deck, but felt that I would need to be extremely lucky and play perfectly to top 8 with it. As it was, I think if I hadn’t misplayed vs. Merfolk I might’ve gone 5-3, but most of the matchups I lost felt completely unwinnable regardless of how I piloted.
If you’ve read this far, kudos. I just graduated as an English Major so I decided to put it all out there. Let me know your thoughts and question. Till next time, may your opponents be incinerated by the 1 cmc embodiments of your passion. Let the lightning bolts fly,
~Realize
Pile A:
3 FBB Korean Bolts
1 FBB Japanese Lightning Bolt
2 Wall of Roots (Mirage)(Throw in)
1 Kitaki (MM)
$140 Cash
Pile B:
Mutavault
Volcanic Island (Heavily Played)
The Volcanic has a crimp on the bottom, not a bad one, and unnoticeable from an arms length distance. The wear on the corners/edges is really only noticeable from the back, so in a sleeve the card looks SP or better.
also, a second trade:
Pile A:
Snapcaster Mage
Foil Young Pyromancer
Here are the odds of having x lands in your opening 7 with 18 and 20 land decks:
18 lands in deck
7 card opening hand
0=7%%
1=24%
2=34%
3=24%
4=9%
5 or > = 2%
20 lands in deck
0=5%
1=20%
2=32%
3=27%
4=12%
5 or > =4%
If we think of 1, 2 or 3 land openers as being prime, then 18 lands is better. It has a higher number of 1,2 or 3 land openers (82%) than the 20 land version (79%). This is important, because if we mull 0 landers and 4+ landers, then the 18 land version will mull 18% of hands, and the 20 lander will mull 21% of hands. That’s roughly 1 more mull every 13 matches.
However, let’s say we want to hit 3 lands by our 4th draw. This is necessary for cards such as flames of the blood hand and Molten rain. The 20 land version will have 3 lands after its 4th draw 80% of the time, as opposed to the 18 land version, which will have 3 lands 71% of the time.
If we keep a 1 land hand on the draw, then the 20 land version will hit its 2nd land after 2 draws 59.2% of the time. The 18 land version will hit 54.3% of the time. If we accept missing one land drop, the 20 land will hit by its third draw 74.5% of the time, whereas the 18 land version will hit by its third draw 69.5% of the time. So with the 20 land deck 15/20 1 land hands will get gassing, whereas the 18 land deck has about 14/20 1 landers getting online in a timely fashion.
There isn’t a huge difference between the two. I like the 20 land version currently. I can do the odds of the 19 land version, but they’re easy to calculate as being in the middle of the two. Searing blaze is another reason we might want to keep hitting land drops. People think of this as a fast deck. It can be, but usually, it’s about being patient and finding the time when you can be sure your spells will resolve. You don’t want to win first, you want to win last.
Went 3-0-1 at a local 9 man tourney on Thursday then went 3-2 in a Modern TCG IQ. At the IQ I beat UW Delver, Melira Pod and GR Tron. I lost to a RUG Twin deck that I'd beaten on Thursday and a scapeshift deck that still hurts. In game 1 I had him at 2 life with 1 draw step to kill him. I had bump in the night in my gy and 5 lands. he had out sakura tribe elder, so searing blaze was live but goblin guide wasn't. 35 outs, 10 dead draws and I hit a dead draw. He then lands a turn 2 spellskite in g2 and i draw nothing.
Overall, i still like the deck. I'm going to take it to a tourney tonight, and i'll try to write a recap for later.
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
2 Harbinger of the Tides
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 AEther Vial
3 Vapor Snag
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
Land
13 Island
4 Mutavault
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Negate
2 Swan Song
2 Spell Pierce
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Tidebinder Mage
1 Spellskite
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
I haven't played Merfolk in a while. I've been on either Grixis Delver or Burn, but decided to go back to Fish after repeatedly feeling that if you don't t1 a Delver then the deck sucks. Before the tournament I joked with a friend about the list, noting how thrown together a lot of the numbers were. Tec Edge main was especially suspect, and I said I'd count out the times it helped vs. the times I was caught off blue. I didn't own Minamo or Oboro, and would've played both if I'd found them for trade. I also would've played second Spellskite if I had found it before I left home (it was hiding in an EDH deck ><).
Round 1 I crushed a newer Soul Sisters player. When I realized he didn't know that my creatures triggered Soul's attendant the round was in the bag.
Round 2 I took down Infect. We have answers for every threat they cast. Seas their inkmoth. Tidebind their noble/glistener. Snag and Dismember as 1 mana removal that ruins their whole day. Spell pierce for days.
Round 3 I shuffled up against a kindly mono Blue Tron player. A random deck check saw that he had left a sb card in his main. Maindeck tec edge breaks up Tron in the one game we played, but it was overkill. He was dead to rights either way.
At 3-0 I sit across from a friend playing Bogles. We briefly consider drawing, but I want to play it out. The winner can double draw into top 8. G1 I get crushed, but Chalice on 1 ends any chance he had in G2. G3 we both mull and I keep a spotty hand with countermagic. He has a bogle but no first strike and trades some umbras off in chump block mode. I'm able to counter the important auras (mostly Daybreak Coronet). I tick a vial to 4 with Master of Waves in hand and draw spreading seas for turn. I've got board control but am at 3 life. He has only a dryad arbor, a plains and a forest on board, and I know he has 2 rancors in hand, and a card he didn't play last turn. I draw spreading seas. If he draws a third green source he can double Rancor his Dryad Arbor and I'm forced to trade my board just blocking. I draw a spreading seas and am left with a decision. If I spreading seas his forest he can't double rancor. But if I spreading seas his Dryad Arbor and he doesn't know that it's still a creature... I take the riskier play and spreading seas the Dryad Arbor. He asks, "So it's an Island?" I pause for a second. "Yes," I say. It is. It's a 1/1 Land Creature - Island Dryad. He untaps, plays a horizon canopy, and taps his Arbor to sac the Canopy and draw a card. Conscience catches up to me, conveniently after he taps the Arbor. "Let's call a judge," I say, and I let the judge explain what I already knew: that Arbor is a still creature. He has his next turn to draw something, but missing that attack lets me build up my board, and I swing for lethal the turn before he draws Coronet. I feel a bit of a pang, but in a match for top 8, whoever the person across the table is is your opponent. Ethical? I answered his question honestly and played to win. So did I call a judge to cover a guilty conscience? Not sure.
I double draw into the 4th seed. I could've played for 1st seed in round 6 but decide not to rely on breakers in the case of a loss.
My opponent is a strong player that i've played against a few times in the past. He's on Abzan. Typical dumb Abzan. He comments that he's tired of top 8ing with his brews and falling short, so he decided to go with a regular ol' tier 1 deck this time. Top seed is on the play. My hand is: Vial, Vial, Island, Island, Mutavault, Merrow, Merrow. Ugh. I tank for a long time but keep it. He mulls. 4 out of my first 6 draws are lands. His 6 thoughtsiezes, decays, dismembers, lingering souls and Rhinos me into submission.
Game 2 my hand is 3 2-mana lords, some countermagic, 1 island and 1 tectonic edge. UGH. Don't do me like this T. Edge! I keep it and my opponent mulls to 5. It takes me a few extra turns to hit double blue, but I eventually get it going and win a game that was way closer than it needed to be. 13 blue sources not looking so hot...
Game 3 I'm on the draw. My hand is a good one that lacks anything tricky: just lords and masters (no counters, vials, or removal) and my opponent mulls to 6. Turns out, his hand was thoughtseize, Maelstrom, and 4 lands. His draws were nuts. He lands a turn 2 dark confidant. I draw a dismember and skip playing a lord to take it out. I get 3 lords on board, and am going to threaten lethal the next turn. He topdecks his 1-of Damnation. Board gone. I recover with a Master of Waves, with 2 more Master of Waves in hand. He plays his 6th land. Maelstrom Pulses and plays his topdecked 1-of Choke. Choke. My board is 3 locked islands and a mutavault. My lack of nonbasics does me in. He rips a siege rhino into a lingering souls and that's all he wrote. Did he topdeck his 2 perfect 1-ofs in a row? Yep. Would I have won the match if i'd built my deck better? Yep. It was a tough beat, but sometimes it rolls that way.
Next weekend I plan to sleeve up this:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
2 Harbinger of the Tides
1 Phantasmal Image
4 AEther Vial
3 Vapor Snag
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
4 Spreading Seas
Land
12 Island
4 Mutavault
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Tectonic Edge
2 Spell Pierce
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Tidebinder Mage
2 Spellskite
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Monastery Siege
2 Dismember
Might tweek the numbers in the board a bit, but that's the gist. Kira is better when there are lots of lightning bolts running around. Dismember in the main is fine, but there's lots of Ad Nauseam and other combo going around, and I like going to Spell Pierce in the main, esp if I cut Kira. Darkslick helps vs. choke and let's me put E. Explosives on 2 and take less damage from dismember. Relic split feels better, and I like Monastery Siege in the side in order to grind.
Edit: Why are people saying that the "2014" is a JPG error? Zoom in... It's definitely a 4...
Make of this what you will. I'm not going to pretend like some dude at a forum relating something his friend said when they were drunk is confirmation, but if you were there and knew the people involved I reckon you'd be as convinced as I am.
At the same time, I don't have a control case. Thoughtseize, IE, was opened 8 times as frequently as a mythic, but I still believe it's price would sink, perhaps to the 40-50 range, if it was mythic.
But even though he was in 5/8 top 8 lists in the open I should check myself, because there were two decks in the top 16 that could've run tarmo but didnt. 2 Different Rug lists played 3-4 young Pyromancer in the Goyf slot. So instead of 9/16, Goyf was only in 7/16 lists. Out of the 8 Invitational decks that went x-1 or better this past weekend, Goyf was only in 2. I don't think that Goyf should be instabanned just yet, but I am leaning towards the conclusion that Goyf's presence in Legacy is not healthy or conducive to a fun format. However, my fear is that taking away a tempo beatstick would give too much power back to combo players. Legacy is a delicate balance, so it's hard to say what is best for the format. Thoughts on Goyf?
If we SB 1 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 16.7% of the time.
If we SB 2 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 30.7% of the time.
If we SB 3 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 42.7% of the time.
If we SB 4 Dragon's Claw, we'll have it 52.8% of the time.
Let's say we SB 2 of them and we're willing to mulligan our first hand if we don't have it. The odds of drawing it in our first hand or mulling and finding it on time in our second are 49.8%
This data was found with a hypergeometric calculator http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx That gave us a 22.1% chance of finding 2 specific cards having seen 7, and a 28% chance of finding 2 specific cards having seen 9. So .221+(1-.221)(.28)= 49.8% of finding 1 of our 2 cards if we mulligan to look for it.
And now, the tourney report:
Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a full tournament report, but I took pretty good notes at a PTQ last Saturday, and figured I would write up my account. I played Modern Burn all of last season. It was a Rbw list, with 4 deathrite shaman. I ran it at 2 PTQs and a Grand Prix to a combined record of 20-10. I’ve been working on putting together a few other decks, but Burn is the deck I know best, so I decided to bring it to the PTQ.
I’m now running a Rbg Version The list:
4 Vexing Devil
2 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Bump in the Night
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
1 Shard Volley
4 Skullcrack
2 Magma Jet
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
6 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Stomping Ground
1 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
3 Rakdos Charm
3 Molten Rain
2 Volcanic Fallout
2 Torpor Orb
1 Ancient Grudge
As you can see, the list is 3 fetches short. Gemstone was great all tournament, and mana wasn’t the issue… The issue was something else entirely…
Round 1 – Tarmo Twin
Round one I’m seated across from my opponent and the judges announce they’ll be picking up our deck lists. My opponent does a final double check of his list, and he holds it up so that the back of the page is facing me. However, with the heavy pen he had used his list was completely readable through the illumined page… I felt a little skeezy, but made use of the free information. I couldn’t see everything, but I read 4 remand, 2 cryptic, 1 dispel, 4 snapcaster… Before he folded the list up. There’s a few different decks that could play those cards, but my thoughts were UR Delver or UR twin with the possibility of Scapeshift.
He wins the die roll, and after a few turns of burning him he plays a deceiver, tapping my Goblin Guide precombat. In my second main I have 3 lands in play and my hand is mountain, Searing Blaze, Magma Jet and Lava Spike with my opponent at 7 Life. My opponent has 4 lands in play, so if I aim my burn at him, he can twin off his next turn. I play the mountain and I searing blaze and Magma jet his exarch. I see a Goblin Guide and a Lightning Bolt. I tank for a while, but put the Guide on the bottom and Bolt on top, so as to dead his removal. On his turn, he plays a land and passes. He plays pestermite on my precombat step, again tapping my guide, leaving up 2 mana. With my Lava Spike and the Bolt I had scryd, I thought I had the win in the bag. Remand does nothing. However, he has his 1-of Dispel for my lightning bolt, stabilizing at 1 life. He untaps, topdecks Splinter Twin and wins… Tough beats. Turns out if I’d left the Goblin guide on top, I would have won. But UR Twin plays 4 bolts, and I knew he only had 1 dispel and no mana leaks in his build. Turns out my extra info did me in. Karmic justice?
SB
+3 Rakdos Charm
+2 Torpor Orb
-4 Vexing devil (They can bolt it and tap it for days. Very rare for it to connect, but it is better on the play than the draw)
-1 Flames of the Blood Hand (no lifegain, 3 cmc is awk vs. Remand)
Game 2 I mulligan and keep Lava Spike, Searing Blaze, Eidolon and 3 lands. After showing me no green game 1, it turns out he’s Tarmo Twin. He turn 2s a goyf, and on turn 3 he bolts my Eidolon. This puts him down to 13, but Tarmo is a 5/6 with the enchantment-creature Eidolon hitting the bin. I draw 3 lands in 4 draw steps and drop the match.
If I’d known he was Tarmo Twin I would’ve sided:
+3 Rakdos Charm
+1 Molten Rain
-4 Vexing Devil (VD is esp. bad vs. the Goyf version)
Round 2 – Ad Nauseam
I’m seated across from a local Portland ringer named Oliver. I knew from before the match that he’s playing Ad Nauseam combo, so I tell him I’m on Burn. We lament our bad beats Game 1 and get to business. I win the die roll, and jokingly ask him if he wants to go to Game 2. He laughs and responds that he has some incidentally good cards vs. Burn. I keep an alright hand, and get to business lava spiking. He suspends Lotus Bloom on turn 1. I Magme jet on turn 2, bottoming the completely dead Searing Blaze and he finds Ad Nauseam with Peer Through Depths on turn 2. I have 3 Skullcracks in hand, so I mistakenly thought I couldn’t lose. I thought that Angel’s Grace prevents damage, but it doesn’t. But Angel’s Grace isn’t cast at any point in the match. Instead, he lands a Turn 3 Phyrexian Unlife. I read the card a few times. Huh… Turn 4 his Bloom comes off suspend, and he Ad Nauseams for the win, drawing his deck and pitching lands to lightning Storm.
+4 Destrutive Revelry
-4 Searing Blaze
Game 2 I keep, Eidolon, Lava Spike x2, Magma Jet, Bump and 2 land. I consider mulliganing to look for Revelry because I expect a combo deck to play Leyline, but the hand and Eidolon are too good for that. On turn 0 he lays down a Gemstone Cavern and a Leyline… Ouch. My Eidolon ends up doing 15 Damage by its lonesome. I Magma Jet myself twice, taking 4 each time, in order to dig for my revelries. He lands a Phyrexian Unlife on turn 3 again. He Tolaria Wests for Pact of Negation, and Ad Nauseams with Counter backup. Double Revelry would have won the game on the spot, but it wasn’t to be. All of a sudden I’m 0-4 in games and out of contention for top 8. I had already planned to play 8 rounds no matter what, So I swallow my pride, step outside for a breath of air, and clear my head for R3.
Round 3. -BYE-
I’m seated at table 0 and I eviscerate my opponent in 0 quick games. He never had a chance. Easiest match of magic I’ve ever won. 1-2 record. 0-4 games.
Round 4 MIRROR
The mirror match is a point of pride. My opponent wins the die roll, and turn 1s a Vexing Devil. I have a Searing Blaze in my hand, so if I’d won the die roll I could’ve crushed him. Instead, he burns me out pretty rapidly, searing blood killing a Goblin Guide. Losing the die roll loses me the game.
He seems to be Mono Red, but he has fetches for a possible splash. I realize that I have no sb cards, and I miss my BRW build that included lightning helixes… Game 2 starts perfectly. I have a creatureless but burn heavy hand. He Turn 1s a Vexing Devil again, and I Searing Blaze it, putting me way ahead. I quickly get him down to 2 5 life, but at that point I’m almost out of burn. He resolves an Eidolon of the Great Revels, but I lightning bolt him in response, putting him to 2. I’d never seen a burn list run a 4 cmc spell, so at this point he can’t cast any spells. I draw and cast a vexing devil, with only lands left in my hand. He has 5 or so cards, but can’t cast any of them and he can’t attack me. I can’t attack him either, so we’re stalemated til I draw a burn spell. I draw 3 lands in a row, just passing the turn and having him pass it back. It was surreal. I draw a Bump in the Night, and for a second I consider decking him instead of casting it. I decide not to tempt fate, and cast the bump for the win.
He had missed the Eidolon trigger when I cast Vexing Devil. It wasn’t relevant, but I include that to say that you should ALWAYS KEEP TRACK OF YOUR TRIGGERS. Seriously. If you don’t the gods will smite you.
Game 3 he’s back on the play and frankly I’m scared. I side in 1 Destructive Revelry and take out 1 Eidolon. He plays eidolon himself and it’s a risky play because he has searing blood as well as searing blaze. My revelry can potentially dome him after killing an eidolon. I keep an ok hand, but immediately regret siding in the Revelry: Vexing Devil, Skullcrack, Bump, lightning Bolt, Destructive Revelry, Mountain, Blackcleave. Revelry stares back at me with no green source, but I decide to keep anyhow. I have 8 green sources, so maybe I can hit one. After my Turn 1 Vexing devil is let resolve, I’m worried. He has the turn 2 Searing Blaze and it’s my turn to be put in a deep hole right off the bat. He casts a Shrine of Burning Rage, and suddenly the format of the game is altered. If I can hit a green source and revelry when he doesn’t have 3 mana up then I can get back into the game. I draw a Magma jet, and see a fetch! His hand seems light on action, as he just passes his turn leaving up 3. Is he playing around artifact hate? On my turn I play the fetch and pass. He bolts me at end of turn, ticks the shrine at upkeep, already up to 4 counters. He Lava Spikes me down to 10 life, ticking the Shrine to 5 counters. I hold my breath. If he doesn’t play a land….. “End step” he says. I exhale, “response, sac the fetch, get a tapped stomping Ground.” “Stomping Ground?” he stutters. I untap and Revelry the Shrine. He groans and shakes his head, but I’m not out of the fire just yet. He bolts me down to 7, draws a spike, and plays it, but I’m pretty sure he’s out of action. I draw and play my 1-of Eidolon and am able to beat in for the win.
He’s a nice guy, so I decide not to tell him that Revelry and Eidolon were 1-ofs.
2-2 (2-5 games…)
Round 5 – Jund
Jund is a pretty good matchup, and I don’t have much trouble burning him out game 1. He damages himself quite a bit with his mana base. He gets out a courser, but I’m able to skullcrack him on two consecutive upkeeps to prevent the lifegain. I’m down to 1 lightning bolt with him at 5, and I draw a land. On his turn, he gains 1 from courser, going up to 6, and is able to hit me for 5, down to 6. Fortunately, I topdeck a burn spell and lock up the game.
+2 Revelry (great vs. Courser, there best card vs. us and sometimes they side in lifegain swords.)
Game 2 had a really strange moment. I keep a good hand, but he has turn 3 courser, turn 4 courser, turn 5 Ooze. I had a Revelry for one of the coursers, and he’s a little tight on mana, so I’ve gotten him down to 6. I’m almost locked out at this point, but if I hit consecutive burn spells and he doesn’t have a land drop I have a shot. I topdeck and play a Bump in the Night putting my opponent to 3, but he reaches his hand out and says, nice, you got it. For some reason, in the heat of it, I refuse his handshake and say, “no no, you’re at 6.” I like to think that I would’ve done it differently if I were still in contention for top 8, but honestly it was a reflex. Turns out he was looking at his life total for game 1 and thought any burn was lethal. A judge later told me that he had really conceded whether I accepted it or not. Conceding is one thing in magic that you can do at any time and it doesn’t use the stack, so your opponent can’t respond. Funny. At any rate, I win Game 3 pretty handily.
Round 6 – Merfolk
I win the die roll and swing with a turn 1 Goblin Guide. My opponenst says “I go to 18.” Technically you’re supposed to resolve the trigger first, but I assume my opponent is shortcutting, and reach for my pen. My opponent reaches for his deck, but instead of flipping the top card he rapidly draws it, plays a land, and passes. It was so quick that I was taken aback. “One sec,” I say, “I have a judge question.” I find a judge and ask him whose responsibility the trigger is. We come back to the table, and my opponent admits that he did everything quickly and that I had never passed the turn. However, by updating my life before the trigger, I had made it clear that I had missed the trigger. Because it’s a detrimental trigger, I get a game warning and my opponent gets to choose if they want to put the trigger on the stack. He does, and flips a Cosi’s Trickster. My opponent apologizes for the warning (which isn’t a big deal to me, I just make sure to announce the trigger for the rest of the tourney), but clearly wasn’t too put off because he had the trigger go on the stack after he had drawn during his own first main. He plays an Aether Vial and passes back. Fish…
My guide beats charge in, but my opponent has a turn 2 lord. Here’ where I commit my first major misplay of the tournament. I magma jet my opponent and then swing for two and my opponent blocks with the lord. Duh. If I jet his lord and swing then he takes the same two damage but I still have a guide. Pretty rookie stuff, but I chalk it up to my 3 hours sleep and keep going on. A few turns late my opponent gets out a big army, and swings for 12 damage, moving me from 17 to 5. He’s been conspicuously representing Spell Pierce for a few turns now. At his end step he’s at 4 life with 1 blue mana untapped. I have 3 lands in play, with a skullcrack and a Magma Jet in hand. If he doesn’t have Spell pierce then I win, and if he does have it (or spell snare) I would rather have him counter the skullcrack, as I’ll need the Jet to dig for a 1 cmc burn spell. At his end step I cast the skullcrack, and sure enough, he spell pierces. In untap, and upkeep Magma jet him, putting him to 2 life. There are 11 cards in my library that will kill him, and about 47 total cards remaining. After the match, a hypergeometric distribution calculator tells me that there’s a 56% chance that I hit the spell in my top 3 cards. My top 2 cards are lands. I bottom them, and the next card is rift bolt so I lose the game.
Game 2 isn’t so close. He has negates, dispels, vial and plenty of lords. I draw lands and fall to 3-3 (4-8 games.)
Round 7 – RUG Twin
My twin opponent is a gentleman from Canada and the nicest/funnest person I met all day. I don’t remember game 1 much, just that I had enough burn and had the Searing Blaze+fetch for his end of turn Pestermite.
Game 2 I keep a hand with 2 Rakdos Charm and 2 lands. I start to get scared because I’m still not drawing lands a few turns in and haven’t put any pressure on him. 2 lands is not enough because end of turn Exarch can tap the land, playing around the Rakdos Charm. However, it turns out that it doesn’t matter…. My opponent draws all 4 of the Islands in his deck and never draws another land of any color. He gets 5 creatures in play, exarchs, mites, and snapcasters, but never the mountains he needs for his twin. This is almost a problem because he starts laying down some pretty serious beats with his awkward army. However, My charms are still good for 5 damage each when I decide to run them out, and he dies on 4 Islands.
4-3 (6-8 games) Top 64 get backs. A win will lock me, but a loss might get me there anyway.
Round 8. Zoo.
The most die roll dependent match in history… He wins Game 1 with his 3rd lightning bolt the turn before I would’ve been able to unleash 9 points of burn to get him for exactsies.
Game 2 I have a Searing Blaze for his t1 Nacatl, and he deals some damage to himself with fetches and shocks. Still, I’m running out of gas and he gets down a large tarmogoyf vs. my Eidolon. He almost has me for lethal and I need another turn to find some burn with my magma jet. He casts Pillar of Flame on my Eidolon, pumping Tarmogoyf with an Enchantment in the graveyard, and swings with kird ape, goblin guide and Gofy. I have to consider whether I should Shard Volley a kird ape in order to make a Lightning Bolt from him nonlethal as his attack would put me down to 3… Wait, what? Pillar of Flame exiles, so Eidolon isn’t in the graveyard. We correct this, and instead his attack puts me to 4. I burn him out after Guide cleared a land away from the top of my deck, and he shows me the almost lethal bolt.
Game 3 he has a turn 5 kill through a searing blaze and I have what would’ve been a turn 5 kill of my own. Zoo is a tough matchup for me as I have no Sideboard.
I finish the tournament a disappointing 4-4, with a 7-10 record in games. Crushingly, I was 65th out of 210 players… Missing prizes by 1 place. I felt that I landed on the wrong side of variance a few times and I certainly didn’t win the pairings lottery. I didn’t play against Pod or Tron, both of which I prey upon. At the same time, I didn’t play against UWR or against soul sisters, decks that Burn can rarely beat. I went 1-1 in aggro matchups which is good considering I lost both die rolls. I went 1-1 vs. Tarmo twin, which is a much harder matchup than UR Twin. I lost to Merfolk which I usually beat, and I lost to Ad Nauseam, which is nigh impossible to beat unless they sputter out and beat themselves. My main feeling about burn in Modern is that it’s a fair deck in a format dominated by broken decks. Given perfect card availability I would play UR Twin, and may piece together a budget version (missing 3 $$$ scalding tarns) for the rest of the Modern season. I love burn as a deck, but felt that I would need to be extremely lucky and play perfectly to top 8 with it. As it was, I think if I hadn’t misplayed vs. Merfolk I might’ve gone 5-3, but most of the matchups I lost felt completely unwinnable regardless of how I piloted.
If you’ve read this far, kudos. I just graduated as an English Major so I decided to put it all out there. Let me know your thoughts and question. Till next time, may your opponents be incinerated by the 1 cmc embodiments of your passion. Let the lightning bolts fly,
~Realize
3 FBB Korean Bolts
1 FBB Japanese Lightning Bolt
2 Wall of Roots (Mirage)(Throw in)
1 Kitaki (MM)
$140 Cash
Pile B:
Mutavault
Volcanic Island (Heavily Played)
The Volcanic has a crimp on the bottom, not a bad one, and unnoticeable from an arms length distance. The wear on the corners/edges is really only noticeable from the back, so in a sleeve the card looks SP or better.
also, a second trade:
Pile A:
Snapcaster Mage
Foil Young Pyromancer
Pile B:
Marsh Flats
18 lands in deck
7 card opening hand
0=7%%
1=24%
2=34%
3=24%
4=9%
5 or > = 2%
20 lands in deck
0=5%
1=20%
2=32%
3=27%
4=12%
5 or > =4%
If we think of 1, 2 or 3 land openers as being prime, then 18 lands is better. It has a higher number of 1,2 or 3 land openers (82%) than the 20 land version (79%). This is important, because if we mull 0 landers and 4+ landers, then the 18 land version will mull 18% of hands, and the 20 lander will mull 21% of hands. That’s roughly 1 more mull every 13 matches.
However, let’s say we want to hit 3 lands by our 4th draw. This is necessary for cards such as flames of the blood hand and Molten rain. The 20 land version will have 3 lands after its 4th draw 80% of the time, as opposed to the 18 land version, which will have 3 lands 71% of the time.
If we keep a 1 land hand on the draw, then the 20 land version will hit its 2nd land after 2 draws 59.2% of the time. The 18 land version will hit 54.3% of the time. If we accept missing one land drop, the 20 land will hit by its third draw 74.5% of the time, whereas the 18 land version will hit by its third draw 69.5% of the time. So with the 20 land deck 15/20 1 land hands will get gassing, whereas the 18 land deck has about 14/20 1 landers getting online in a timely fashion.
There isn’t a huge difference between the two. I like the 20 land version currently. I can do the odds of the 19 land version, but they’re easy to calculate as being in the middle of the two. Searing blaze is another reason we might want to keep hitting land drops. People think of this as a fast deck. It can be, but usually, it’s about being patient and finding the time when you can be sure your spells will resolve. You don’t want to win first, you want to win last.
4 Vexing Devil
2 Dark Confidant
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Bump in the Night
1 Shard Volley
4 Skullcrack
4 Searing Blaze
2 Magma Jet
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
2 Blood Crypt
6 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Stomping Ground
1 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
3 Molten Rain
4 Destructive Revelry
2 Volcanic Fallout
2 Torpor Orb
Went 3-0-1 at a local 9 man tourney on Thursday then went 3-2 in a Modern TCG IQ. At the IQ I beat UW Delver, Melira Pod and GR Tron. I lost to a RUG Twin deck that I'd beaten on Thursday and a scapeshift deck that still hurts. In game 1 I had him at 2 life with 1 draw step to kill him. I had bump in the night in my gy and 5 lands. he had out sakura tribe elder, so searing blaze was live but goblin guide wasn't. 35 outs, 10 dead draws and I hit a dead draw. He then lands a turn 2 spellskite in g2 and i draw nothing.
Overall, i still like the deck. I'm going to take it to a tourney tonight, and i'll try to write a recap for later.