Awhile ago, Elcon was nice enough to teach me how to do some mathematical analysis on different Burn lists. I thought I'd share what I've done here, so that you can see why I believe Mardu is faster enough compared to Boros to merit going three colors with a more painful manabase.
To begin, here are the lists I used to calculate. These are what I personally believe to be the best 75 for an open metagame. I only used the maindeck for calculation purposes, but I thought I'd list the sideboard for completion.
With that in mind, here are the numbers about the decks I calculated. I used the expected creature damage values in the primer for calculcation, adding the Eidolon attacking and Eidolon triggering numbers together.
Average damage per nonland card: 2.96
Average CMC: 1.45
Number of cards needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=6.757
19=6.419
18=6.081
17=5.743
Average amount of mana needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=9.80
19=9.31
18=8.82
17=8.33
Average damage per nonland card: 2.96
Average CMC: 1.29
Number of cards needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=6.757
19=6.419
18=6.081
17=5.743
Average amount of mana needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=8.69
19=8.26
18=7.82
17=7.39
So what does this mean? It means that, on average, Mardu burn will require about one mana less than Boros burn to drop someone to zero depending on their starting life total (which is brought down as a result of fetches, Thoughtseize, etc). Is this significant enough to go to three colors? I believe so, for several reasons. First, it's important that not only does Mardu burn require one mana less, but exactly how much mana each decklist requires. Boros burn requires ten mana for 20-19, and nine mana for 18-17 (you can't have fractions of mana, so I always rounded up). Likewise, Mardu burn requires nine mana for 20-19, and eight mana for 18-17. This means that if your first three land drops are hit, it's possible for Mardu burn to turn 4 kill someone from 20. That simply won't happen with Boros outside of extremely unlikely creature damage; for Boros, you need to hit all four land drops, which we specifically build to avoid. Not only that, but it can only happen on the draw, because we'd need seven burn spells to be successful. In addition, it means that in order to turn 4 kill someone from 18-17, a common fetch range, Boros needs to hit their first three land drops. Mardu can afford to miss exactly one. This allows us to more safely play a lower land count and makes it less vital for us to hit our third land drop exactly on turn three. This in turn allows more gas and less risk of flooding.
Because of this, I feel it's worth going into a third color to play eight more bolts even though it's more painful to do so. Boros burn seems to need incredibly perfect hands to approach the speed of Mardu, and any sort of disruption significantly harms it. Mardu seems to suffer from these problems drastically less. It improves our goldfishing enough in exactly the right way for it to be what I believe is mathematically relevant, and I believe the format has slowed enough for the pain increase to be worth it.
Honestly, I've never understood the fear against Brutality with Burn. It's certainly not a fun card to see, but in my experience it's a fair Burn hate card against us, not game-stopping in the way Chalice is.
Chained to the Rocks...to be honest, I forgot that card existed. It's definitely an interesting thought. My biggest concern is that the decks we want to bring it in against can often have answers to it. BGx has Abrupt Decay/Maelstrom Pulse, EldraziTron and UW Control has Ghost Quarter, Merfolk has Spreading Seas. I think it dodges GDS hate, which is nice. By the time they land a midrange threat we want to deal with, do we really care about the ramp?
I feel like Collective Brutality is either a creature kill spell or a gain/drain on a player and never anything more than that in Burn. If you're able to escalate it as a Burn deck, things aren't going well for you. You'd only ever pitch lands to it, and if you're pitching lands to it then you're probably flooding and in trouble and escalating it doesn't help you. If it's only one mode, Lightning Helix is a gain/drain on a player or a kill spell and is just better at those modes than Brutality.
I agree with you. I was thinking the discard might be useful versus opposing discard, lifegain, or board wipes, but that seems like a stretch to count on. Besides, I feel like most lifegain nowadays is stapled to creatures. I think I just want Helix and Blaze.
EDIT: And now that I'm thinking about it, don't I just want D.Rev or Wear//Tear and Relic or RIP in place of Rakdos Charm? Typically I feel like charms are awesome in aggro decks because it provides a plethora of slightly weaker answers, saving us card slots for threats, but I think white pretty much does all of that but better already. I could see Rakdos Charm being played in a go-wide heavy meta (Merfolk, Affinity, Elves, etc). If that were the case, I'd use them as my graveyard hate, and play a 3-3 split of them and Wear//Tear. But then again I think to myself, isn't it better just to cut black versus aggro?
Notes: both Gonti and Eidolon are shaved to 3 MB do to diminishing returns in multiples. Eidolon has been performing worse for me lately, seldomly winning games I wasn't winning already and losing some game games I would have won without? Thoughts? Favouring low cmc of spells to increase clock, but lose life gain and prevent life gain from Crack and Helix. In the board, the Bedlam Reveler is in the test phase for control/Jund/rock decks. RCharm has been great against any deck trying to flood the board (Coco, affinity and Merfolk besides the obv GY hate, where both modes are live against storm (Goblins), living end and dredge.
Cheers
I agree that you want 4x of both Gonti and Eidolon. Both cards are cards that are best on turn two, and get worse as the game goes on. Eidolon because the damage it does is directly related to how long it's around, and Gonti because the longer it sits on the field the more energy you can build for future subsequent draws. Because of this, you really want to maximize the chances you'll see them in your opener.
I like both Collective Brutality and Rakdos Charm as flexible charm slots in the sideboard. I don't have the room to play either, and I think I'd play Radkos Charm before I played Brutality, but I like that they're tools we have depending on specific metagames or future shifts. My biggest concern for Brutality is that it screams aggro hate in the color that I want to be cutting post-board against aggro decks.
So the other night I had my first 4-0 at my LGS. It's a bigger LGS, usually with 40-50 players per night. Thought I'd give a quick breakdown. Here's the list:
Match 1: UG Infect (2-1)
Game 1: I trade my burn for early removal successfully, and end up getting him down to three. But he has a strong turn and gets me to nine poison with a Nexus. It comes down to if I draw a burn spell or not, and I draw...a Machinations. Feelsbadman.
Board in: 4x Searing Blaze, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Gonti's Machinations, 3x Lightning Helix (this is a special case of my opponent being fast but not actually damaging my life total, making Gonti pretty bad here. Also in retrospect, I think I should have boarded out Bumps and kept Helix, to have more targeted removal. If I had done that, I would have boarded out all four Bumps and brought in a Skullcrack so I didn't have to worry about black mana.)
Game 2: Pretty easy win, I have two Blazes with landfall to deal with his Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent.
Game 3: I have him down to 5 with burn spells aplenty in hand and a Guide on the field. He tries to go for the win with an Inkmoth Nexus. He tries to cast Vines of Vastwood on it, and I Shard Volley in response. He's one mana away from being able to Become Immense in response to that, and I win.
Match 2: Scapeshift (2-0)
Game 1: He mulls to five, and I mull to six here. It's a straight race, but his mulliganing hurt him badly.
Board in: 4x Skullcrack, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Gonti's Machinations, 3x Rift Bolt (again, a situation where he isn't really harming me until he goes in for the kill. I'm learning Gonti is better versus fair decks, and I probably side it out against combo, which makes sense).
Game 2: This time, we both mulligan to five. Fortunately, my mulligan gets me two lands, a Guide, a Swiftspear, and a Bump in the Night. I draw gas and he can't go off in time.
Match 3: Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1: Definitely my closest match of the evening. Game one he blocks with a Guide an early Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, which I personally think was a mistake. He does stop my initial assault, but then we play the draw-go game and I bottle his counters and snaps for the win.
Board in: 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 3x Rift Bolt (I thought about taking out Helixes, but I decided I'd rather be able to play at instant speed as much as I can).
Game 2: His discard game is strong, and I end up having to spend a lot of my resources to destroy a Liliana, the Last Hope (redirect the damage trigger from my Eidolon on his casted Kozilek's Return, then Lava Spike her). Pretty soon I have no cards in hard and he's still at 15. A Gurmag Angler secures him the game.
Game 3: This game was interesting. I end up drawing three Swiftspears and a Guide, and he ends up drawing three Young Pyromancers. There's a lot of chump blocking and trading with elemental tokens. I'm glad I drew so many creatures to match his Pyromancers, otherwise I don't believe I would have won. He ends up flooding after that ground battle clears up, and I finish him with burn with three minutes left in the round.
Match 4: EldraziTron (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent offers the split, but I decide I wanted to play to try and go for 4-0. These games were blissfully quick, and I'm thankful I never saw a Chalice. Game one I just burn him out before he can assemble Tron, nothing special to talk about.
Board in: 4x Wear//Tear, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Eidolon of the Great Revel, 3x Rift Bolt
Game 2: I lead off with a Goblin Guide, followed by a Swiftspear and a Lightning Bolt. He's trying to stabilize as fast as he can. I get him down to three, and he hardcasts a Batterskull. I Path the token on his end step, and he scoops.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with how Gonti's is performing for me. I know I boarded it out in two games, and I've learned that it's not good against combo decks. I did topdeck it for the loss against Infect, and that's a very real potentiality. As of right now, I'm accepting that it's a bad topdeck in the way our creatures are bad topdecks. A lot of the speed in which I won had to do with Gonti's, and I'm not just saying that because I'm reporting. A lot of my opening plays were Guide/Swifty, followed by Gonti and then crack a fetch for another burn spell, giving me an energy and pumping Swifty twice. If you're on the fence about this card, I personally recommend it's worth testing.
How did this feel with just 18 lands? I found it hard to reliably have 2 mana on turn 2 when I played an 18-land, 2 SSG Bushwhacker Zoo.
Also, I've considered adding Sulfurous Springs as an additional way to trigger Machinations without the need to sandbag or topdeck fetchlands. Can't see how to fit them in a 18-land list though...
I used elcon's keepable hand statistics in this primer for determining whether I felt comfortable going to 18 lands or not. While 18 lands was slightly worse than 20 lands in determining optimal keep rates, it was only by .3% versus 20 land builds. If I recall correctly, I believe he said his sample size allowed for results with a margin of error up to 1%, which means this difference could be statistically explained by that. In addition, I'm playing eight more one drops than the build he used to calculate, which means I can easily foresee the keep rate surpassing the 20 land build with my specific 60.
Overall, it's REALLY hard for the human brain to accurately tell the differences in something like this. I had two games where I kept a one land hand in my tournament. I'm not sure if that would have changed with an extra 1-2 lands. To be honest, I'm doubtful. I do know that playing 18 lands lets me play a full playset of Lightning Helix, and my one drop count is quite low compared to other burn lists.
In terms of Sulfurous Springs, I'm not sure I would play it. My build is pretty goldfishy, and I think that means you wanna max out on your fetchlands to sculpt your colors as much as possible. YMMV, though.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with how Gonti's is performing for me. I know I boarded it out in two games, and I've learned that it's not good against combo decks. I did topdeck it for the loss against Infect, and that's a very real potentiality. As of right now, I'm accepting that it's a bad topdeck in the way our creatures are bad topdecks. A lot of the speed in which I won had to do with Gonti's, and I'm not just saying that because I'm reporting. A lot of my opening plays were Guide/Swifty, followed by Gonti and then crack a fetch for another burn spell, giving me an energy and pumping Swifty twice. If you're on the fence about this card, I personally recommend it's worth testing.
I've tested and posted some videos on Gonti early on (its in the early thread).
I didn't like it very much - its imo is even less consistence then Shrine.
Thanks for the tip, much appreciated. I totally agree on the Rift Bolt call.
So the other night I had my first 4-0 at my LGS. It's a bigger LGS, usually with 40-50 players per night. Thought I'd give a quick breakdown. Here's the list:
Match 1: UG Infect (2-1)
Game 1: I trade my burn for early removal successfully, and end up getting him down to three. But he has a strong turn and gets me to nine poison with a Nexus. It comes down to if I draw a burn spell or not, and I draw...a Machinations. Feelsbadman.
Board in: 4x Searing Blaze, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Gonti's Machinations, 3x Lightning Helix (this is a special case of my opponent being fast but not actually damaging my life total, making Gonti pretty bad here. Also in retrospect, I think I should have boarded out Bumps and kept Helix, to have more targeted removal. If I had done that, I would have boarded out all four Bumps and brought in a Skullcrack so I didn't have to worry about black mana.)
Game 2: Pretty easy win, I have two Blazes with landfall to deal with his Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent.
Game 3: I have him down to 5 with burn spells aplenty in hand and a Guide on the field. He tries to go for the win with an Inkmoth Nexus. He tries to cast Vines of Vastwood on it, and I Shard Volley in response. He's one mana away from being able to Become Immense in response to that, and I win.
Match 2: Scapeshift (2-0)
Game 1: He mulls to five, and I mull to six here. It's a straight race, but his mulliganing hurt him badly.
Board in: 4x Skullcrack, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Gonti's Machinations, 3x Rift Bolt (again, a situation where he isn't really harming me until he goes in for the kill. I'm learning Gonti is better versus fair decks, and I probably side it out against combo, which makes sense).
Game 2: This time, we both mulligan to five. Fortunately, my mulligan gets me two lands, a Guide, a Swiftspear, and a Bump in the Night. I draw gas and he can't go off in time.
Match 3: Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1: Definitely my closest match of the evening. Game one he blocks with a Guide an early Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, which I personally think was a mistake. He does stop my initial assault, but then we play the draw-go game and I bottle his counters and snaps for the win.
Board in: 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 3x Rift Bolt (I thought about taking out Helixes, but I decided I'd rather be able to play at instant speed as much as I can).
Game 2: His discard game is strong, and I end up having to spend a lot of my resources to destroy a Liliana, the Last Hope (redirect the damage trigger from my Eidolon on his casted Kozilek's Return, then Lava Spike her). Pretty soon I have no cards in hard and he's still at 15. A Gurmag Angler secures him the game.
Game 3: This game was interesting. I end up drawing three Swiftspears and a Guide, and he ends up drawing three Young Pyromancers. There's a lot of chump blocking and trading with elemental tokens. I'm glad I drew so many creatures to match his Pyromancers, otherwise I don't believe I would have won. He ends up flooding after that ground battle clears up, and I finish him with burn with three minutes left in the round.
Match 4: EldraziTron (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent offers the split, but I decide I wanted to play to try and go for 4-0. These games were blissfully quick, and I'm thankful I never saw a Chalice. Game one I just burn him out before he can assemble Tron, nothing special to talk about.
Board in: 4x Wear//Tear, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Eidolon of the Great Revel, 3x Rift Bolt
Game 2: I lead off with a Goblin Guide, followed by a Swiftspear and a Lightning Bolt. He's trying to stabilize as fast as he can. I get him down to three, and he hardcasts a Batterskull. I Path the token on his end step, and he scoops.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with how Gonti's is performing for me. I know I boarded it out in two games, and I've learned that it's not good against combo decks. I did topdeck it for the loss against Infect, and that's a very real potentiality. As of right now, I'm accepting that it's a bad topdeck in the way our creatures are bad topdecks. A lot of the speed in which I won had to do with Gonti's, and I'm not just saying that because I'm reporting. A lot of my opening plays were Guide/Swifty, followed by Gonti and then crack a fetch for another burn spell, giving me an energy and pumping Swifty twice. If you're on the fence about this card, I personally recommend it's worth testing.
Seems like it's at it's worst point ever. Bad against Eldrazi Tron, Death Shadow. Bad against UW control.
Clunky at times because we can get constricted on lands and draw multiples. For now, I'm at 3 copies and running a shard volley instead.
Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts.
Mine are in my board because I literally just don't have the room for them in my maindeck. You definitely want 4 in the 75. My personal view is that you should play 4 or 0. It's the sort of card that's really at its best on turn two, to kill mana dorks or stave off aggressive creatures. I think you wanna maximize the chances that you see it.
I agree, it's not as good as it used to be, but I'd still probably play 4 in my maindeck if I had the room to free up sideboard slots for more situational cards.
Just played a game against Scapeshift. He was at 7, I had a Boros Charm in hand, and a Machinations on the field with one energy in my pool. I passed the turn to my opponent. He cast Scapeshift and went off, aiming six triggers at me. I cast my Charm in response, let one trigger resolve (gaining an energy counter), and popped the Machinations for the win. He called me out for slow rolling--I call it making him commit to his triggers.
A quick note, even after he puts the trigger on the stack and assign the target, he only has to decide whether or not valakut deals damage once the ability resolve. So you should have waited until you get the 1st energy before firing the boros charm
Just played a game against Scapeshift. He was at 7, I had a Boros Charm in hand, and a Machinations on the field with one energy in my pool. I passed the turn to my opponent. He cast Scapeshift and went off, aiming six triggers at me. I cast my Charm in response, let one trigger resolve (gaining an energy counter), and popped the Machinations for the win. He called me out for slow rolling--I call it making him commit to his triggers.
Great write-up, elcon. If it's not too stressing, I would love to see a "mull to 6" addition in the 18-19-20 land comparisons, as it's a pretty common thing to go down that far. How mulling to 6 affects the overall keep percentages.
For future reference, I would side out Eidolons against Affinity, and keep in the Lava Spikes and Boros Charms. I would side out the black cards and Eidolons, side in the Blazes, the Wear//Tears, the Paths, and a single Skullcrack to hit 60.
To begin, here are the lists I used to calculate. These are what I personally believe to be the best 75 for an open metagame. I only used the maindeck for calculation purposes, but I thought I'd list the sideboard for completion.
10x Fetches
4x Inspiring Vantage
3x Sacred Foundry
3x Mountain
Creatures (12)
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
2x Shard Volley
Other Burn (14)
4x Boros Charm
4x Searing Blaze
4x Lightning Helix
2x Skullcrack
2x Skullcrack
2x Deflecting Palm
3x Path to Exile
3x Rest in Peace
3x Wear // Tear
2x Shattering Spree
12x Fetches
2x Sacred Foundry
2x Blood Crypt
2x Mountain
Creatures (12)
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Bump in the Night
4x Gonti's Machinations
2x Shard Volley
Other Burn (8)
4x Boros Charm
4x Lightning Helix
3x Path to Exile
4x Skullcrack
4x Searing Blaze
4x Wear // Tear
With that in mind, here are the numbers about the decks I calculated. I used the expected creature damage values in the primer for calculcation, adding the Eidolon attacking and Eidolon triggering numbers together.
Average damage per nonland card: 2.96
Average CMC: 1.45
Number of cards needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=6.757
19=6.419
18=6.081
17=5.743
Average amount of mana needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=9.80
19=9.31
18=8.82
17=8.33
Average CMC: 1.29
Number of cards needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=6.757
19=6.419
18=6.081
17=5.743
Average amount of mana needed to bring someone to 0 life from:
20=8.69
19=8.26
18=7.82
17=7.39
So what does this mean? It means that, on average, Mardu burn will require about one mana less than Boros burn to drop someone to zero depending on their starting life total (which is brought down as a result of fetches, Thoughtseize, etc). Is this significant enough to go to three colors? I believe so, for several reasons. First, it's important that not only does Mardu burn require one mana less, but exactly how much mana each decklist requires. Boros burn requires ten mana for 20-19, and nine mana for 18-17 (you can't have fractions of mana, so I always rounded up). Likewise, Mardu burn requires nine mana for 20-19, and eight mana for 18-17. This means that if your first three land drops are hit, it's possible for Mardu burn to turn 4 kill someone from 20. That simply won't happen with Boros outside of extremely unlikely creature damage; for Boros, you need to hit all four land drops, which we specifically build to avoid. Not only that, but it can only happen on the draw, because we'd need seven burn spells to be successful. In addition, it means that in order to turn 4 kill someone from 18-17, a common fetch range, Boros needs to hit their first three land drops. Mardu can afford to miss exactly one. This allows us to more safely play a lower land count and makes it less vital for us to hit our third land drop exactly on turn three. This in turn allows more gas and less risk of flooding.
Because of this, I feel it's worth going into a third color to play eight more bolts even though it's more painful to do so. Boros burn seems to need incredibly perfect hands to approach the speed of Mardu, and any sort of disruption significantly harms it. Mardu seems to suffer from these problems drastically less. It improves our goldfishing enough in exactly the right way for it to be what I believe is mathematically relevant, and I believe the format has slowed enough for the pain increase to be worth it.
Chained to the Rocks...to be honest, I forgot that card existed. It's definitely an interesting thought. My biggest concern is that the decks we want to bring it in against can often have answers to it. BGx has Abrupt Decay/Maelstrom Pulse, EldraziTron and UW Control has Ghost Quarter, Merfolk has Spreading Seas. I think it dodges GDS hate, which is nice. By the time they land a midrange threat we want to deal with, do we really care about the ramp?
I get the sense it's worth discussing, but my gut tells me that the cantripping on Relic is better than the scry on the Totem for us.
Truth. Although I'd still play Guide or Swifty before it. My priority order is, as a general rule:
Eidolon
Guide
Swiftspear
Gonti
Rift Bolt
Bump
Spike
Bolt/Charm/Helix
Shard Volley
I agree with you. I was thinking the discard might be useful versus opposing discard, lifegain, or board wipes, but that seems like a stretch to count on. Besides, I feel like most lifegain nowadays is stapled to creatures. I think I just want Helix and Blaze.
EDIT: And now that I'm thinking about it, don't I just want D.Rev or Wear//Tear and Relic or RIP in place of Rakdos Charm? Typically I feel like charms are awesome in aggro decks because it provides a plethora of slightly weaker answers, saving us card slots for threats, but I think white pretty much does all of that but better already. I could see Rakdos Charm being played in a go-wide heavy meta (Merfolk, Affinity, Elves, etc). If that were the case, I'd use them as my graveyard hate, and play a 3-3 split of them and Wear//Tear. But then again I think to myself, isn't it better just to cut black versus aggro?
I agree that you want 4x of both Gonti and Eidolon. Both cards are cards that are best on turn two, and get worse as the game goes on. Eidolon because the damage it does is directly related to how long it's around, and Gonti because the longer it sits on the field the more energy you can build for future subsequent draws. Because of this, you really want to maximize the chances you'll see them in your opener.
I like both Collective Brutality and Rakdos Charm as flexible charm slots in the sideboard. I don't have the room to play either, and I think I'd play Radkos Charm before I played Brutality, but I like that they're tools we have depending on specific metagames or future shifts. My biggest concern for Brutality is that it screams aggro hate in the color that I want to be cutting post-board against aggro decks.
I used elcon's keepable hand statistics in this primer for determining whether I felt comfortable going to 18 lands or not. While 18 lands was slightly worse than 20 lands in determining optimal keep rates, it was only by .3% versus 20 land builds. If I recall correctly, I believe he said his sample size allowed for results with a margin of error up to 1%, which means this difference could be statistically explained by that. In addition, I'm playing eight more one drops than the build he used to calculate, which means I can easily foresee the keep rate surpassing the 20 land build with my specific 60.
Overall, it's REALLY hard for the human brain to accurately tell the differences in something like this. I had two games where I kept a one land hand in my tournament. I'm not sure if that would have changed with an extra 1-2 lands. To be honest, I'm doubtful. I do know that playing 18 lands lets me play a full playset of Lightning Helix, and my one drop count is quite low compared to other burn lists.
In terms of Sulfurous Springs, I'm not sure I would play it. My build is pretty goldfishy, and I think that means you wanna max out on your fetchlands to sculpt your colors as much as possible. YMMV, though.
Thanks for the tip, much appreciated. I totally agree on the Rift Bolt call.
4x Arid Mesa
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Blood Crypt
2x Sacred Foundry
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 Boros Charm
4x Lightning Helix
4x Searing Blaze
4x Skullcrack
4x Wear // Tear
3x Path to Exile
Match 1: UG Infect (2-1)
Game 1: I trade my burn for early removal successfully, and end up getting him down to three. But he has a strong turn and gets me to nine poison with a Nexus. It comes down to if I draw a burn spell or not, and I draw...a Machinations. Feelsbadman.
Board in: 4x Searing Blaze, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Gonti's Machinations, 3x Lightning Helix (this is a special case of my opponent being fast but not actually damaging my life total, making Gonti pretty bad here. Also in retrospect, I think I should have boarded out Bumps and kept Helix, to have more targeted removal. If I had done that, I would have boarded out all four Bumps and brought in a Skullcrack so I didn't have to worry about black mana.)
Game 2: Pretty easy win, I have two Blazes with landfall to deal with his Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent.
Game 3: I have him down to 5 with burn spells aplenty in hand and a Guide on the field. He tries to go for the win with an Inkmoth Nexus. He tries to cast Vines of Vastwood on it, and I Shard Volley in response. He's one mana away from being able to Become Immense in response to that, and I win.
Match 2: Scapeshift (2-0)
Game 1: He mulls to five, and I mull to six here. It's a straight race, but his mulliganing hurt him badly.
Board in: 4x Skullcrack, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Gonti's Machinations, 3x Rift Bolt (again, a situation where he isn't really harming me until he goes in for the kill. I'm learning Gonti is better versus fair decks, and I probably side it out against combo, which makes sense).
Game 2: This time, we both mulligan to five. Fortunately, my mulligan gets me two lands, a Guide, a Swiftspear, and a Bump in the Night. I draw gas and he can't go off in time.
Match 3: Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1: Definitely my closest match of the evening. Game one he blocks with a Guide an early Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, which I personally think was a mistake. He does stop my initial assault, but then we play the draw-go game and I bottle his counters and snaps for the win.
Board in: 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 3x Rift Bolt (I thought about taking out Helixes, but I decided I'd rather be able to play at instant speed as much as I can).
Game 2: His discard game is strong, and I end up having to spend a lot of my resources to destroy a Liliana, the Last Hope (redirect the damage trigger from my Eidolon on his casted Kozilek's Return, then Lava Spike her). Pretty soon I have no cards in hard and he's still at 15. A Gurmag Angler secures him the game.
Game 3: This game was interesting. I end up drawing three Swiftspears and a Guide, and he ends up drawing three Young Pyromancers. There's a lot of chump blocking and trading with elemental tokens. I'm glad I drew so many creatures to match his Pyromancers, otherwise I don't believe I would have won. He ends up flooding after that ground battle clears up, and I finish him with burn with three minutes left in the round.
Match 4: EldraziTron (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent offers the split, but I decide I wanted to play to try and go for 4-0. These games were blissfully quick, and I'm thankful I never saw a Chalice. Game one I just burn him out before he can assemble Tron, nothing special to talk about.
Board in: 4x Wear//Tear, 3x Path to Exile
Board out: 4x Eidolon of the Great Revel, 3x Rift Bolt
Game 2: I lead off with a Goblin Guide, followed by a Swiftspear and a Lightning Bolt. He's trying to stabilize as fast as he can. I get him down to three, and he hardcasts a Batterskull. I Path the token on his end step, and he scoops.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with how Gonti's is performing for me. I know I boarded it out in two games, and I've learned that it's not good against combo decks. I did topdeck it for the loss against Infect, and that's a very real potentiality. As of right now, I'm accepting that it's a bad topdeck in the way our creatures are bad topdecks. A lot of the speed in which I won had to do with Gonti's, and I'm not just saying that because I'm reporting. A lot of my opening plays were Guide/Swifty, followed by Gonti and then crack a fetch for another burn spell, giving me an energy and pumping Swifty twice. If you're on the fence about this card, I personally recommend it's worth testing.
Mine are in my board because I literally just don't have the room for them in my maindeck. You definitely want 4 in the 75. My personal view is that you should play 4 or 0. It's the sort of card that's really at its best on turn two, to kill mana dorks or stave off aggressive creatures. I think you wanna maximize the chances that you see it.
I agree, it's not as good as it used to be, but I'd still probably play 4 in my maindeck if I had the room to free up sideboard slots for more situational cards.
Good call, thanks for that.
Just played a game against Scapeshift. He was at 7, I had a Boros Charm in hand, and a Machinations on the field with one energy in my pool. I passed the turn to my opponent. He cast Scapeshift and went off, aiming six triggers at me. I cast my Charm in response, let one trigger resolve (gaining an energy counter), and popped the Machinations for the win. He called me out for slow rolling--I call it making him commit to his triggers.