Nice stuff.
Anyways, I noticed more decks running Ensnaring Bridge at GP Lyon. Any thoughts?
Modern is still taking shape, but in a world of Jund, I envision them having abrupt decay and kolaghan's command in their main--and blowing bridge up. The problem with Bridgee in burn--You'll cast an entire turn casting it. Sometimes it's the only option. But that's rare enough. Where I think we want it is something that's faster than us.
I think what we're going to see is a lot of jund and control--and thus Tron rises.
None of those warrants bridge.
I've flirted with it, it's tested ok. It's still not the game I want to be playing most of the time. A lot of decks have a way to deal with it.
Abrupt decay/K Command
Humans can MEddling mage it or freebooter it.
G/W/X creature decks can Quadali pride-mage it
If we get on the train hardcore--Merfolk will know to bring in echoing truth against us.
Elves will dig up their elf that destroys an artifact.
Grixis and 5 color death shadow decks have K command
While you can argue--but meddling mage won't take lightning Bolt--I can lightning Bolt them when they cast the meddling mage. I can't effectively cast an ensnaring bridge until I have 3 lands. I often sit at 2 lands for a while.
I think sticking with damage based answers is where we want to be. Searing Blood is great.
Path to exile is often free against some decks. Affinity has 1 basic land. Humans often has 1.
I understand all of this. I think an important thing to factor in is that unbannings were not put in place until after the GP. I think for that particular GP, it may have been a good meta play. But yeah, the current decks in the meta where Bridge would matter are the decks that are running answers to them.
I understand all of this. I think an important thing to factor in is that unbannings were not put in place until after the GP. I think for that particular GP, it may have been a good meta play. But yeah, the current decks in the meta where Bridge would matter are the decks that are running answers to them.
The problem with a card like bridge--it works on more of a "gotcha" basis.
People know burn players do it from to time, but it's rare enough that it isn't expected.
If it becomes a consistent card--they'll know it's coming in and have a plan to deal with it.
Hello ppl. There is one idea I want to discuss with You: Metagame Driven Deck Development.
We all read tonns of various Primers where all our options precicely considered and for each card was given a value... in vacuum. That's it. All this precilations about how bad vexing davil is, or how wonderfull searing blaze was given related to some average situation.
But, do we have such average situations in th day-to-day basis? I bet no. I bet most of your games takes place in a tight community with barely 3 dozens of players, who LITERRALY knows each other from personal cooking tastes to exact sideboard builds, psycology and in game patters of decicion making.
So, what if we are terribly wrong when we make a decition to play or not to play some card? Let me make a concrete exapmle. Most of my fellow competitive players are quite aware of my deck choice. So they always aware of what kind of play I tend to make at 1st, 2nd, 3r tuns.
So, when we are speaking about any dedicated player, who met me in battle, all my "perfect card choices" eventually becomes less valuebale. When any UWR mage around knows that You are That Burn Guys, is Your Boros Charm still THE BEST DIRECT DAMAGE? HELL NO, It's just a 1 to 1 exchange with a Spell Snare or a Spell Pierce! Or our All-Star-Eidolon, if he the best guy here? Nope again. It's just a basic RR sorcery speed Shock! In my last 7 daily tournaments that guys never ever managed to survive in a game where he was rellevant. And here a question arises. Shoud I still play with Eidolons while every serious opponent I face will keep a bolt, a snare or a PtE 146% sure? Maybe its better to swapt Eidolons for basic Shocks, as soon as they do exact same damage in the given meta? At least shocks are way faster. Maybe 2nd turn Shrine Of Buring Rage is better that an Eidolon, assuming they can not kill th Shrine with a Bolt from a starting hand?
Is the RIP still the best grave hate, when everyone knows that You do play exact one + 2 cages? So when they discard it with an Inqusition, they definety have nothing to fear? If if worthy to play Grave HAte at all, If anyone who depends on grave are aware of Your particular choices?
Obviously you should tune your deck and sideboard for who you play against. You don't need graveyard hate if no one around you plays graveyard strategies. You can shave Searing effects if you don't see many small creature decks. For an SCG that I played, I cut green completely and played RW with Smash to Smithereens, but I can't do that locally because I need enchantment removal. I didn't play Kor Firewalker, but I do play it locally because there are a lot of other Burn players. Does a meta exist where T1 Vexing Devil is a 4 damage Lava Spike? Yes. That meta is not The Meta(TM) you'll see at a large tournament, but is instead some strange degenerate local meta somewhere. The Burn player in that meta should play Devil, but that doesn't change my recommendations about Devil otherwise.
When I play locally, everyone knows I'm on Burn. This is part of why I don't buy the Scalding Tarn "gotcha!" trick, because you're known as the Burn player when you play locally and the trick doesn't work. Similarly, the trick doesn't work when you're at the top tables of a big tournament because everyone else is scouting and will know you're on Burn. You're going to run into situations where this is the 10th time in the last 6 months you've played against Sally right after you played against Bob for the 9th time in the same period, and both of them are going to make optimal plays believing/knowing that you're on Burn. That might mean that they fetch tapped to preserve life on T1. It might mean they mulligan differently because of you playing Burn (I've had a guy say "nah, can't keep that against you" before). Presumably, you're also making optimal plays given that you know what they usually play. That's a good thing.
When any UWR mage around knows that You are That Burn Guys, is Your Boros Charm still THE BEST DIRECT DAMAGE? HELL NO, It's just a 1 to 1 exchange with a Spell Snare or a Spell Pierce!
Boros Charm isn't the best direct damage spell (that's Bolt for efficiency), but it's very good. It's also not "just a 1 to 1 exchange with a counter". That sounds like a "tap mountains, cast bolts" strategy, and you're just asking to lose if you play against control like that. Bottleneck their cards and mana. They play fewer counters than you play Burn spells.
Shoud I still play with Eidolons while every serious opponent I face will keep a bolt, a snare or a PtE 146% sure?
Yes. That's not even a hard decision. Eidolon is one of the best cards in the deck. Sometimes it dies. I don't see anyone bending over backwards to make it so that you can't cast Shock, but they'll bend over backwards to deal with Eidolon because they've lost the game if they don't. Shrine of Burning Rage isn't worthy of carrying Eidolon's jock strap.
Is the RIP still the best grave hate, when everyone knows that You do play exact one + 2 cages? So when they discard it with an Inqusition, they definety have nothing to fear? If if worthy to play Grave HAte at all, If anyone who depends on grave are aware of Your particular choices?
I like Relic, personally, but why does it matter if people know that you play them? If you're at an SCG/GP and entering game 2 against a deck that uses the grave, they should expect either Relic of RiP from you (and they expect 2-3 total), so it's not even a mystery to someone who doesn't know you. Your known opponent has no way of knowing they took your only RiP unless you told them 3 weeks ago "I only play 1". That knowledge might marginally affect how the rest of the game plays out, but they were going to take your graveyard hate with IoK anyway, so it doesn't effect turn 1. You should play the graveyard hate that you think most helps you beat graveyard decks, not whatever your opponent doesn't expect.
Edit: To be clear, I would not want to play a sub-optimal version of Burn in order to surprise opponents who know I play Burn. Instead, I'd just play a different deck. When there's too much Burn hate, I switch to Bushwhacker Zoo.
Ramunap Ruins isn't good enough for Modern Burn. It's not Barbarian Ring. I question your statement that you are "always flooding", because you shouldn't be. The difference between 18, 19, and 20 is on the order of a few percent. I suspect that you're either having confirmation bias (disproportionately remembering floods) or you're not shuffling thoroughly enough. I never want to see a 4th land, much less a 5th, so I don't plan on it happening by RR.
People are shaving skullcracks because it's just a player only lightning strike if your opponent isn't playing lifegain. If lifegain burn hate shows up more than it has been, skullcrack becomes a 4-of. This is just a meta call.
Magma Jet isn't strong enough. Think of scry as drawing half of a card. 2 damage+draw happy of a card isn't worth it. I'm not sure 2 damage+draw for 2cmc would be, either, but it would be very powerful at 1cmc.
I love and hate Deflecting Palm. It was better when Infect was better, but I don't like it much right now. It's too reactive of a card and can be dead sometimes. I'm planning to try Exquisite Firecraft instead, which I think someone else here suggested a while back.
If you go to the articles linked in the primer, there are 2 by Mike Flores about Chained to the Rocks. "CttR Dilemma" and "CttR Experiment" I think. I tried it and didn't like it in situations where you're likely to see land destruction, but I see his reasoning for wanting more t1 answers to Noble. I'm open to a split with at least 2 PtE, though.
If you face a Jace fatesealing you, use fetches at EoT to shuffle when they leave a card on top. Other than that, thank your blue opponent for tapping 4 lands on their turn to cast something that doesn't matter to you in the slightest bit and then beat them. Burn should be very strong against Jace decks. Burn is going to be the police keeping Jace in check, along with other aggro like Affinity.
Just a reminder that, while Naya Burn may be better thanks to the rise tools to combat aggro, it's also a great opportunity to try Mardu Burn if you've been on the fence.
And why would you choose Mardu over Naya?. If you're just trying it for fun, I get it, but it seems like that deck doesn't have much competitive potential.
I disagree. You would choose Mardu for the eight extra bolts which increases the speed of the deck by about a full turn. As far as I know it's the fastest iteration of Burn out there.
Thank you for this answer elconquistador1985.
I have also tested Dire fleet daredevil. A real spicy card of sideboard on my opinion. Not so expensive at 20 lands, you can just exile an instant/sorcery against a snapcaster, or recast a lightning bolt.
Daredevil only hits opponent's spells, so you can't recast your stuff. Huge limitation IMO.
I disagree. You would choose Mardu for the eight extra bolts which increases the speed of the deck by about a full turn. As far as I know it's the fastest iteration of Burn out there.
I'm missing one. Bump in the Night would be one, what's the second?
Apparently Eidolon is expensive-ish on mtgo (I don't play there, so no idea), so this will probably make Burn cheaper there. It might also mean more Burn players there, which means more Burn hate there.
Apparently Eidolon is expensive-ish on mtgo (I don't play there, so no idea), so this will probably make Burn cheaper there. It might also mean more Burn players there, which means more Burn hate there.
Yeah, they're like $20-23 USD each on MTGO and easily the most expensive card in the deck.
I disagree. You would choose Mardu for the eight extra bolts which increases the speed of the deck by about a full turn. As far as I know it's the fastest iteration of Burn out there.
I'm missing one. Bump in the Night would be one, what's the second?
Gonti's Machinations, yeah.
Gonti's machinations maybe ? But if it would be faster, everybody would play mardu boros instead of boros, isn't it ?
I believe it's a case of bandwagon fallacy. People want to play what's best, so they look up online and see that Boros is the primary list. They believe Boros must be correct, and therefore play Boros themselves, increasing the number of Boros Burn decks for the next group of researchers to look at. For the same reason Nacatl Burn was played, Mardu Burn isn't being played. In addition, I do believe straight Boros has strengths over Mardu, due to Inspiring Vantage and a less painful manabase. In a known aggro meta I would likely play Boros over Mardu, but in a vacuum I believe the speed of Mardu is fast enough to be worth more than the life saved from Boros.
I am still hesitant to play on mtgo. This news of Eidolon is great, I will wait until next month to buy a burn list. Until that I remain on Cockatrice, for maybe test that Rakdos burn you are confident on it, Creevian_Legacy.
Can you give me a list to start ?
I will keep 1 stomping grounds for 4 Drev in sideboard, we must do that to answer at Leyline. So I am wondering about white because of damages from lands.
MisterMuffin21 was talking about Contaminated ground. I am thinking if hand disruption spells are usefull also. Quid of number of Rain of gore and Self-inflicted wound ?
Do you have any other suggestions of cards ?
Edit: I start to test something like that
18 lands: 3 mountain 2 Blood crypt 1 Stomping grounds 4 Foothills 4 Mire
14 crea with 2 lavamancers
18 spells: 4 Bolt 4 Rift 4 Spike 4 Skullcrack 4 SBlaze 4 Bump 4 Gonti
Sideboard: 2 Nihil spellbomb 4 Contamined ground 4 Drev 2 SBlood 2 Self-inflicted wound 1 murderous cut
30 1-drop, 12 2-drop. This is why I go 18. Maybe 16.... Maybe 10 ?!
Sure thing! Here's the list I use. I wouldn't actually advocate Rakdos; I think White is the most important color in Burn (after Red of course).
As you can see, I'm of the opinion that Wear/Tear is fine over Destructive Revelry if it means a stronger 75 overall (which I believe it does). Give it a shot; you might be surprised.
As a tip, you pretty much always want to fetch black before you fetch white, and if you have a Gonti's make sure to play it before you play a fetch/shock for the turn. Half of the reason Gonti works is because of fetchlands. Don't pop it until you're about to win with it, unless playing around lifegain hate like Skullcrack. It also gets around Leyline, and if you have two out and take damage you get two energy, one for each trigger.
Traverse shadow is an off-shoot of Other death shadow decks. Same concept. They run Ghloe-Clan Rampagee and Temur Battle rage to try to get you dead more quickly.
So from what I can tell with mardu is you sacrifice some of your creature matchups to have better linear matchups. I'm not sure if this is the way to go.
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Modern is still taking shape, but in a world of Jund, I envision them having abrupt decay and kolaghan's command in their main--and blowing bridge up. The problem with Bridgee in burn--You'll cast an entire turn casting it. Sometimes it's the only option. But that's rare enough. Where I think we want it is something that's faster than us.
I think what we're going to see is a lot of jund and control--and thus Tron rises.
None of those warrants bridge.
I've flirted with it, it's tested ok. It's still not the game I want to be playing most of the time. A lot of decks have a way to deal with it.
Abrupt decay/K Command
Humans can MEddling mage it or freebooter it.
G/W/X creature decks can Quadali pride-mage it
If we get on the train hardcore--Merfolk will know to bring in echoing truth against us.
Elves will dig up their elf that destroys an artifact.
Grixis and 5 color death shadow decks have K command
While you can argue--but meddling mage won't take lightning Bolt--I can lightning Bolt them when they cast the meddling mage. I can't effectively cast an ensnaring bridge until I have 3 lands. I often sit at 2 lands for a while.
I think sticking with damage based answers is where we want to be. Searing Blood is great.
Path to exile is often free against some decks. Affinity has 1 basic land. Humans often has 1.
The problem with a card like bridge--it works on more of a "gotcha" basis.
People know burn players do it from to time, but it's rare enough that it isn't expected.
If it becomes a consistent card--they'll know it's coming in and have a plan to deal with it.
Obviously you should tune your deck and sideboard for who you play against. You don't need graveyard hate if no one around you plays graveyard strategies. You can shave Searing effects if you don't see many small creature decks. For an SCG that I played, I cut green completely and played RW with Smash to Smithereens, but I can't do that locally because I need enchantment removal. I didn't play Kor Firewalker, but I do play it locally because there are a lot of other Burn players. Does a meta exist where T1 Vexing Devil is a 4 damage Lava Spike? Yes. That meta is not The Meta(TM) you'll see at a large tournament, but is instead some strange degenerate local meta somewhere. The Burn player in that meta should play Devil, but that doesn't change my recommendations about Devil otherwise.
When I play locally, everyone knows I'm on Burn. This is part of why I don't buy the Scalding Tarn "gotcha!" trick, because you're known as the Burn player when you play locally and the trick doesn't work. Similarly, the trick doesn't work when you're at the top tables of a big tournament because everyone else is scouting and will know you're on Burn. You're going to run into situations where this is the 10th time in the last 6 months you've played against Sally right after you played against Bob for the 9th time in the same period, and both of them are going to make optimal plays believing/knowing that you're on Burn. That might mean that they fetch tapped to preserve life on T1. It might mean they mulligan differently because of you playing Burn (I've had a guy say "nah, can't keep that against you" before). Presumably, you're also making optimal plays given that you know what they usually play. That's a good thing.
Boros Charm isn't the best direct damage spell (that's Bolt for efficiency), but it's very good. It's also not "just a 1 to 1 exchange with a counter". That sounds like a "tap mountains, cast bolts" strategy, and you're just asking to lose if you play against control like that. Bottleneck their cards and mana. They play fewer counters than you play Burn spells.
Yes. That's not even a hard decision. Eidolon is one of the best cards in the deck. Sometimes it dies. I don't see anyone bending over backwards to make it so that you can't cast Shock, but they'll bend over backwards to deal with Eidolon because they've lost the game if they don't. Shrine of Burning Rage isn't worthy of carrying Eidolon's jock strap.
I like Relic, personally, but why does it matter if people know that you play them? If you're at an SCG/GP and entering game 2 against a deck that uses the grave, they should expect either Relic of RiP from you (and they expect 2-3 total), so it's not even a mystery to someone who doesn't know you. Your known opponent has no way of knowing they took your only RiP unless you told them 3 weeks ago "I only play 1". That knowledge might marginally affect how the rest of the game plays out, but they were going to take your graveyard hate with IoK anyway, so it doesn't effect turn 1. You should play the graveyard hate that you think most helps you beat graveyard decks, not whatever your opponent doesn't expect.
Edit: To be clear, I would not want to play a sub-optimal version of Burn in order to surprise opponents who know I play Burn. Instead, I'd just play a different deck. When there's too much Burn hate, I switch to Bushwhacker Zoo.
Qute a good point... I'll consider it =)
DnT! I'm a power-load
DnT! Watch me Explode
People are shaving skullcracks because it's just a player only lightning strike if your opponent isn't playing lifegain. If lifegain burn hate shows up more than it has been, skullcrack becomes a 4-of. This is just a meta call.
Magma Jet isn't strong enough. Think of scry as drawing half of a card. 2 damage+draw happy of a card isn't worth it. I'm not sure 2 damage+draw for 2cmc would be, either, but it would be very powerful at 1cmc.
I love and hate Deflecting Palm. It was better when Infect was better, but I don't like it much right now. It's too reactive of a card and can be dead sometimes. I'm planning to try Exquisite Firecraft instead, which I think someone else here suggested a while back.
If you go to the articles linked in the primer, there are 2 by Mike Flores about Chained to the Rocks. "CttR Dilemma" and "CttR Experiment" I think. I tried it and didn't like it in situations where you're likely to see land destruction, but I see his reasoning for wanting more t1 answers to Noble. I'm open to a split with at least 2 PtE, though.
If you face a Jace fatesealing you, use fetches at EoT to shuffle when they leave a card on top. Other than that, thank your blue opponent for tapping 4 lands on their turn to cast something that doesn't matter to you in the slightest bit and then beat them. Burn should be very strong against Jace decks. Burn is going to be the police keeping Jace in check, along with other aggro like Affinity.
Daredevil only hits opponent's spells, so you can't recast your stuff. Huge limitation IMO.
I'm missing one. Bump in the Night would be one, what's the second?
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Apparently Eidolon is expensive-ish on mtgo (I don't play there, so no idea), so this will probably make Burn cheaper there. It might also mean more Burn players there, which means more Burn hate there.
Yeah, they're like $20-23 USD each on MTGO and easily the most expensive card in the deck.
Gonti's Machinations, yeah.
I believe it's a case of bandwagon fallacy. People want to play what's best, so they look up online and see that Boros is the primary list. They believe Boros must be correct, and therefore play Boros themselves, increasing the number of Boros Burn decks for the next group of researchers to look at. For the same reason Nacatl Burn was played, Mardu Burn isn't being played. In addition, I do believe straight Boros has strengths over Mardu, due to Inspiring Vantage and a less painful manabase. In a known aggro meta I would likely play Boros over Mardu, but in a vacuum I believe the speed of Mardu is fast enough to be worth more than the life saved from Boros.
Sure thing! Here's the list I use. I wouldn't actually advocate Rakdos; I think White is the most important color in Burn (after Red of course).
12x Fetches
3x Sacred Foundry
2x Blood Crypt
2x Mountain
Creatures
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Rift Bolt
4x Lava Spike
4x Bump in the Night
4x Gonti's Machinations
2x Shard Volley
Other Burn
4x Lightning Helix
3x Skullcrack
1x Skullcrack
4x Searing Blaze
3x Rest in Peace
3x Path to Exile
4x Wear/Tear
As you can see, I'm of the opinion that Wear/Tear is fine over Destructive Revelry if it means a stronger 75 overall (which I believe it does). Give it a shot; you might be surprised.
As a tip, you pretty much always want to fetch black before you fetch white, and if you have a Gonti's make sure to play it before you play a fetch/shock for the turn. Half of the reason Gonti works is because of fetchlands. Don't pop it until you're about to win with it, unless playing around lifegain hate like Skullcrack. It also gets around Leyline, and if you have two out and take damage you get two energy, one for each trigger.