I've lately shifted towards one of the Stupid Green builds. They tend to use Command better than the combo-oriented lists. As much as I liked Devotion with Command, the trend of Modern towards hyper-linear deck construction means that focus is required, and I don't think Command wants to be run in the same shell that fully leverages Garruk WS or KotR.
When facing Dark Depths with Burn, you just lose.
And both of you are happy to just lose.
I find that very strange.
What you are missing (or perhaps deliberately pretending to miss) is that the sideboard is not about beating specifically your hardest matchups, but improving your overall deck performance against the field as whole. If putting a card in your SB improves your results by 1% against 20% of your opponents, that is worth more than if the card improves your results by 10% against 1% of opponents--even if that opponent is one of your worst matchups. In other words: frequently a card that is pretty good in a lot of match-ups is much better than a card that is amazing in just a few (even if they're your worst).
That's the point: we're fine with not playing Moon because it only helps against very few decks, and that's a lot weaker than our other choices.
Now if your specific meta has enough Depths that you run into it constantly, you have two choices: heavily warp your deck to beat it while sacrificing a ton of points against everything else (what you're doing) or switch decks to something that has a better matchup against Depths naturally (which is what most of us would do).
Now, you say you have been able to make Burn a good choice in a Depths-heavy meta. I find that very interesting. Perhaps you can provide some statistics on the breakdown of decks in your local meta, your records against some of the dominant decks in that meta, and your current deck list. This would provide some useful information to judge the conclusion, test, and see if maybe there is a secret that we have all missed that would improve our own deck construction in the future.
Until there is some evidence though, the existing data makes us a bit skeptical.
I just want to voice that I agree with elconquistador1985 on what generally classifies as a fair or unfair deck. While it's true that basically no viable deck in Legacy is completely fair, Aether Vial and Force of Will decks are about as fair as they come. I would suggest to magic geek that Force of Will is the card that keeps Legacy as fair as it generally is, and to imagine what the field would look like without that card before he labels its inclusion as an unfair one.
Burn is still a viable deck in Legacy because of its matchups against aforementioned fair decks. Specifically: the more Force of Will is being played in your field, the better off Burn probably is.
I would also suggest to magic geek that they not fixate so much on the Burn versus Depths matchup. Depths is intended to punch through the UW Miracles deck which is basically Jace, StP, Terminus, and a bunch of cantrips to find them. We have even less defense than that. Even if the entire SB was devoted towards beating Depths, I wouldn't expect this matchup to reach 50-50. If you can't accept losing to Depths at least 2/3 of the time, you probably need to switch decks.
I was considering what Cainsson said about the effect of the London Mulligan, and think I agree with elconquistador1985 as well. Because Burn is a critical-mass deck rather than a key-card deck, Mulligans will always hurt and you want to take few of them. Playing fewer lands means keeping more 6 card hands than 7, and there are very few sixes for us that are better than a mediocre 7.
Edit: I missed ox4's comment. Goblin Recruiter allowed a win that was absurdly fast and reliable for it's day, which took forever to actually execute (because you basically stacked the deck). While it might not be overpowering now, it is still potentially really annoying for the last reason and so I'm fine if it stays on the list. As for Iona in Reanimator, you may have noticed the card is often in the sideboard or not present at all. That's because that as good as it is against Burn, it's pretty poor against most other decks which can either fight it with discard, countermagic, or present answers in multiple colors (usually Jace + either StP or Edicts), or which have Karakas. You probably should lump Reanimator in with Depths decks and Show and Tell decks as matchups that are extremely unfavorable for Burn, and accept that.
If you're just trying to beat Depths, Alpine Moon will help. Don't expect it to have much other use, though. It's a very niche choice.
You can also decide to accept that Burn, like any other deck, has its bad matchups. It is particularly bad against A+B combo decks, including Reanimator, Depths, and SnT. At that point, you decide whether or not you are willing to accept that liability for the other advantages Burn offers. Burn has some very one-sided match ups, and if that bothers you enough then you will probably need to look for a different deck.
If I were to play PtE--and I would not advise that anyone seriously consider doing so--I would not do this with less than an effective 14 sources of white mana to reliably remove a Griselbrand, Marit Lage, or other card as soon as turn 1. This probably ought to be in the form of 10 or 11 fetch lands and 3 or 4 Plateau.
Going consistently faster is certainly the most tried-and-true way to beat combo. Your hate cards, where you have them, need to consistently buy you at least one turn to be really worthwhile.
The issue with Miracle cards generally (including Reforge the Soul and Thunderous Wrath) is them being dead if you draw them in your opener, which is most of the cards you see in any given game you win. If Burn had a good pitch-value card the way blue has Force of Will, I'd definitely consider it. Unfortunately, Pyrokinesis is not where we want to be.
Against black-based combo decks, answers on the table are much better than those in hand. The land-based answers are your best bets against an on-table Marit Lage, Emrakul, or Griselbrand, if you choose to go that way. Karakas is hands-down the best of the bunch, but there is something to be said for variety in the face of cards like Pithing Needle.
Mono-Red Burn is not the best to play "because it's cheap and easy." It's the best to play because mono-Red is consistently powerful. All the spells you need to get the job done are in mono-Red, and you're immune to color-screw by randomness and Wasteland.
Fetches are sometimes used in Burn for cards like Searing Blaze. Duals and splashes aren't left on the table because good players don't have them. They're left on the table because the options granted by splashing are almost never worth the cost in performance from adding 3 Duals, 10 fetches, and a bunch of spells that aren't actually damaging the opponent.
If you want to play something with a better game against combo or hate cards than Burn, UR Delver is a fine deck. But if you're facing a meta that demands you splash if you play Burn, it's probably not a meta you want to play Burn in to begin with.
$10 for a even a basic Burn deck is a pretty good deal. Even Bolts go for $2ish these days.
We have some very powerful sideboard options against combo. The problem is that most of them are quite specific, and very few are unbeatable by a skilled opponent. Karakas and Ensnaring Bridge are the most flexible choices, having value against Reanimator, SnT decks, and Depths decks, but the former is often not quite sufficient and the latter is often too slow. Leyline of the Void, Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre, and Tormod's Crypt are options against graveyard-using decks, but they only work against these decks, and Crypt is the only one I find serviceable (Leyline forces you to mulligan far too much and leaves you with dead draws, while Surgical and Faerie often falter in the face of discard). Pyrostatic Pillar and Pithing Needle have some fringe utility, but often aren't quite powerful enough, or sufficiently effective in enough matches.
At the end of the day, bad matches against combo will rarely change from that state. Your sideboard cards probably aren't going to beat them. You're just trying to buy time. If a sideboard card buys you a single turn, given your damage output, that's often enough.
Yeah, but let's face it: we've been getting PWs generally one mana undercosted forever. I'm not upset with this card, since we have so many good PW options already.
As for the deck itself, I've made a few changes though I've been playing much more Legacy lately. I feel like Anthony Skrzypczak hit the nail on the head with the white addition, as it increases options. In addition to running the obvious RiP, Stony Silence, and Worship in the board, I have traded Fracturing Gust and Acidic Slime for Knight of Autumn. The card is not as powerful as the other two, but is immensely flexible and significantly faster, which often matters a lot. I've also replaced my Witness and Garruk Relentless with a pair of Nissa VF. I definitely think it's an improvement over Witness, but I'm not sure about Relentless.
I'm beginning to scrape together a Skred Red deck - I'm along time boros burn player, but in EDH I play with Jaya Ballard, Task Mage (snow-covered mountains and artifact heavy), and it seems like Skred Red is the closest modern equivalent. The videos I've been watching are very fun. I like the idea of exploring the other side of the Red spectrum for a while.
I was wondering what people thought of of Goblin Cratermaker in the sideboard. It's a rare card that allows us to directly remove Karn and Ugin for 3 mana. I know Blood Moon can shut down Tron's land very easily, but in many of the videos I've been watching, the games go long, and very often the opponent gets to seven mana naturally. In addition, it provides the ability to block/spot remove a number of creatures in the format.
I'm also curious about counterspells in the sideboard. This deck is weak to combo, and it seems like some counterspell interaction can help in this matter. The deck that won the GP (Dallas?) had 2 Ricochet Trap that seemed like an okay response to some control decks, but limited in what it can actually interact with. Guttural Response seems like it would be more universally good, as it can also take out Gifts Ungiven when facing storm. Thoughts?
Cratermaker is fine. I run three Abrade in my 60, and Cratermaker fills a very similar role. It's a bit less mana-efficient, but more flexible.
The countermagic we have access to is pretty weak, and you're best disrupting combo through things we are already good at like Blood Moon messing with mana, destroying key artifacts and creatures, and using Relic to fight graveyard mechanics. Because we are so weak to some combo decks, it actually doesn't pay to fight them at all--instead of weakening our fair matchups to add a meager few percentage points to really bad matchups, we hope to dodge those bad matchups while being even stronger against fair decks.
Personally, I would suggest removing the Chandras, the Raost, and maybe even the Banefire for Jets. Chandras are the easy cut for me, particularly due to the data on them. Yeah, Skred has worse numbers, but Skred actually has a much better function in the first few turns when we're trying to ramp into the turn three Koth (removing creatures to help ensure he ults). Chandra is basically additional copies of Koth that takes longer to ult, imo. As for the control matchups, Eternal Scourge has been an all-star for me.
What matchups do you bring in Spitebellows?
Spitebellows are just extra hard to counter removal spells. I used to bring them again against Grixis Death Shadow (Inquisition can't get it, Stubborn Denial or Negate neither), but that deck isn't as relevant anymore. Now, they come in against decks that play other big creatures: Tarmogoyf-decks, Titanshift and Hollow One mainly. Occasionally they can be good against decks that you don't see very often: Merfolk, Living End, Ponza (Inferno Titan). Against Humans it can help to get those Champions that grew too quickly. I've liked the card, but maybe 2 of them along with one Roast might be too many big removal spells.
That being said, I like them more than Roast, so that one'll be removed in favor of one Magma Jet. I didn't realise Chandra puts up such poor numbers, I'm a bit hestitant to remove them as I like the versatility the card presents.
I've watched your videos - keep up the good work!
FWIW, I disagree pretty strongly with cutting below 2 Chandra, especially since you have plenty of outlets for extra mana and your build is the more controlling Scourge-oriented approach. Thnkr and I have sharply different approaches to data-gathering and card evaluation, though.
Your list really is very tight, since you want to play Stone and Jet despite their occupying similar roles for the deck. That's fine, but it is going to cost you something from either your threat-package or removal package.
Whether to cut Roasts or Spitebellows depends a lot on your metagame. In short, do you expect a lot of Anglers and Hollow Ones? If that's the sort of problem you're dealing with, you really do want that kind of answer--and you need it in the main deck. Banefire is similar, but it's a stronger case for an SB card since you only want it for one type of matchup and that matchup is quite winnable in other ways (for instance: Relic-Scourge combo).
I think if you're running Jet and Stone, you can shift Banefire to the SB, cut Ronom (since you now have 8 non-land ways to supplement mana), perhaps remove a Stormbreath (a card I love, but now you have lots of ways to dig for it) and make another cut in your removal package (since Jets are a sort of Removal). This shouldn't hurt the balance too much, and will put you in a good position to decide if your deck feels removal-light or threat-light on further modification. It will also give you a lot of boarding flexibility.
I'm all for making the Magic community a more accepting and welcoming place. However, this article basically uses the same hyperbolic vitriol and political edge that has crept in everywhere. I hear enough politics (combined with evangelizing and calling people Nazis) basically everywhere else. Can we fix these issues without resorting to the same base behavior?
What you are missing (or perhaps deliberately pretending to miss) is that the sideboard is not about beating specifically your hardest matchups, but improving your overall deck performance against the field as whole. If putting a card in your SB improves your results by 1% against 20% of your opponents, that is worth more than if the card improves your results by 10% against 1% of opponents--even if that opponent is one of your worst matchups. In other words: frequently a card that is pretty good in a lot of match-ups is much better than a card that is amazing in just a few (even if they're your worst).
That's the point: we're fine with not playing Moon because it only helps against very few decks, and that's a lot weaker than our other choices.
Now if your specific meta has enough Depths that you run into it constantly, you have two choices: heavily warp your deck to beat it while sacrificing a ton of points against everything else (what you're doing) or switch decks to something that has a better matchup against Depths naturally (which is what most of us would do).
Now, you say you have been able to make Burn a good choice in a Depths-heavy meta. I find that very interesting. Perhaps you can provide some statistics on the breakdown of decks in your local meta, your records against some of the dominant decks in that meta, and your current deck list. This would provide some useful information to judge the conclusion, test, and see if maybe there is a secret that we have all missed that would improve our own deck construction in the future.
Until there is some evidence though, the existing data makes us a bit skeptical.
Burn is still a viable deck in Legacy because of its matchups against aforementioned fair decks. Specifically: the more Force of Will is being played in your field, the better off Burn probably is.
I would also suggest to magic geek that they not fixate so much on the Burn versus Depths matchup. Depths is intended to punch through the UW Miracles deck which is basically Jace, StP, Terminus, and a bunch of cantrips to find them. We have even less defense than that. Even if the entire SB was devoted towards beating Depths, I wouldn't expect this matchup to reach 50-50. If you can't accept losing to Depths at least 2/3 of the time, you probably need to switch decks.
I was considering what Cainsson said about the effect of the London Mulligan, and think I agree with elconquistador1985 as well. Because Burn is a critical-mass deck rather than a key-card deck, Mulligans will always hurt and you want to take few of them. Playing fewer lands means keeping more 6 card hands than 7, and there are very few sixes for us that are better than a mediocre 7.
Edit: I missed ox4's comment. Goblin Recruiter allowed a win that was absurdly fast and reliable for it's day, which took forever to actually execute (because you basically stacked the deck). While it might not be overpowering now, it is still potentially really annoying for the last reason and so I'm fine if it stays on the list. As for Iona in Reanimator, you may have noticed the card is often in the sideboard or not present at all. That's because that as good as it is against Burn, it's pretty poor against most other decks which can either fight it with discard, countermagic, or present answers in multiple colors (usually Jace + either StP or Edicts), or which have Karakas. You probably should lump Reanimator in with Depths decks and Show and Tell decks as matchups that are extremely unfavorable for Burn, and accept that.
You can also decide to accept that Burn, like any other deck, has its bad matchups. It is particularly bad against A+B combo decks, including Reanimator, Depths, and SnT. At that point, you decide whether or not you are willing to accept that liability for the other advantages Burn offers. Burn has some very one-sided match ups, and if that bothers you enough then you will probably need to look for a different deck.
The issue with Miracle cards generally (including Reforge the Soul and Thunderous Wrath) is them being dead if you draw them in your opener, which is most of the cards you see in any given game you win. If Burn had a good pitch-value card the way blue has Force of Will, I'd definitely consider it. Unfortunately, Pyrokinesis is not where we want to be.
Fetches are sometimes used in Burn for cards like Searing Blaze. Duals and splashes aren't left on the table because good players don't have them. They're left on the table because the options granted by splashing are almost never worth the cost in performance from adding 3 Duals, 10 fetches, and a bunch of spells that aren't actually damaging the opponent.
If you want to play something with a better game against combo or hate cards than Burn, UR Delver is a fine deck. But if you're facing a meta that demands you splash if you play Burn, it's probably not a meta you want to play Burn in to begin with.
We have some very powerful sideboard options against combo. The problem is that most of them are quite specific, and very few are unbeatable by a skilled opponent. Karakas and Ensnaring Bridge are the most flexible choices, having value against Reanimator, SnT decks, and Depths decks, but the former is often not quite sufficient and the latter is often too slow. Leyline of the Void, Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre, and Tormod's Crypt are options against graveyard-using decks, but they only work against these decks, and Crypt is the only one I find serviceable (Leyline forces you to mulligan far too much and leaves you with dead draws, while Surgical and Faerie often falter in the face of discard). Pyrostatic Pillar and Pithing Needle have some fringe utility, but often aren't quite powerful enough, or sufficiently effective in enough matches.
At the end of the day, bad matches against combo will rarely change from that state. Your sideboard cards probably aren't going to beat them. You're just trying to buy time. If a sideboard card buys you a single turn, given your damage output, that's often enough.
Re: Electrodominance: I'm not sure this is actually better than Genesis Hydra or Genesis Wave for us.
Re: Discord: Since I'm lately drifting away from Modern, does someone want to take over management of the server for this archetype?
As for the deck itself, I've made a few changes though I've been playing much more Legacy lately. I feel like Anthony Skrzypczak hit the nail on the head with the white addition, as it increases options. In addition to running the obvious RiP, Stony Silence, and Worship in the board, I have traded Fracturing Gust and Acidic Slime for Knight of Autumn. The card is not as powerful as the other two, but is immensely flexible and significantly faster, which often matters a lot. I've also replaced my Witness and Garruk Relentless with a pair of Nissa VF. I definitely think it's an improvement over Witness, but I'm not sure about Relentless.
Cratermaker is fine. I run three Abrade in my 60, and Cratermaker fills a very similar role. It's a bit less mana-efficient, but more flexible.
The countermagic we have access to is pretty weak, and you're best disrupting combo through things we are already good at like Blood Moon messing with mana, destroying key artifacts and creatures, and using Relic to fight graveyard mechanics. Because we are so weak to some combo decks, it actually doesn't pay to fight them at all--instead of weakening our fair matchups to add a meager few percentage points to really bad matchups, we hope to dodge those bad matchups while being even stronger against fair decks.
FWIW, I disagree pretty strongly with cutting below 2 Chandra, especially since you have plenty of outlets for extra mana and your build is the more controlling Scourge-oriented approach. Thnkr and I have sharply different approaches to data-gathering and card evaluation, though.
Your list really is very tight, since you want to play Stone and Jet despite their occupying similar roles for the deck. That's fine, but it is going to cost you something from either your threat-package or removal package.
Whether to cut Roasts or Spitebellows depends a lot on your metagame. In short, do you expect a lot of Anglers and Hollow Ones? If that's the sort of problem you're dealing with, you really do want that kind of answer--and you need it in the main deck. Banefire is similar, but it's a stronger case for an SB card since you only want it for one type of matchup and that matchup is quite winnable in other ways (for instance: Relic-Scourge combo).
I think if you're running Jet and Stone, you can shift Banefire to the SB, cut Ronom (since you now have 8 non-land ways to supplement mana), perhaps remove a Stormbreath (a card I love, but now you have lots of ways to dig for it) and make another cut in your removal package (since Jets are a sort of Removal). This shouldn't hurt the balance too much, and will put you in a good position to decide if your deck feels removal-light or threat-light on further modification. It will also give you a lot of boarding flexibility.