P.S: I play 2 Atarka's SB because of lifegain in my meta, but if I could play something else that would help against UW, please let me know
Honestly I think it's just a race. Atarka's Command should be really good against them. Don't be afraid to use it as a pump, as opposed to holding it up for lifegain. Or even a land drop if it lets you play a bolt while he's tapped out. If it helps you not get countered, it's basically "preventing three lifegain". Graveyard hate wouldn't be awful, between Snapcaster Mage and Crucible of Worlds. Also, between Colonnade and Gideons, I think I'd bring in Path, although I'm not 100% sure that's the right call. Also, you can hold up fetches and fetch/shock in response to Timely Reinforcements, potentially negating the lifegain. You can also cast instant-speed burn spells in response to them fetching to help play around counterspells. Basically, go all in. Hurt yourself as much as possible and try to close that game out last turn.
Hmm...how important would you say Eternal Witness is? I definitely see its value, but maybe more removal is just better? It can also be hard to cast, and very graveyard dependent.
What would be your recommendations for the SB in an open meta at a big tournament then?
Is GY hate even necessary anymore with DS decreasing in popularity?
I'm of the opinion that graveyard hate isn't currently very necessary for Burn. All the decks that utilize the graveyard I would say we either race, or disrupt with Path and instant speed burn (such as GDS).
I cut the Kitchen Finks because I think at two copies it wouldn't consistently show up enough for what I wanted it to do, which is be an early game lifegainer/blocker and I was struggling to add a third. I essentially split the slots into a third Ooze, and a second Liliana, the Last Hope. I really like having six Lillys for Goyf, and this Liliana can do a great Eternal Witness impression if the game goes long. With the new planeswalker rules coming up, I feel it's safe to do this.
Aside from that, I have a single Engineered Explosives in the board to be a sometimes-third Flaying Tendrils and also an artifact board wipe, because I know my pure artifact destruction is low. I hope the EE and the last Abrupt Decay will make up for it.
More for fun and to better understand Burn than anything concrete, I decided to test out Gonti's Machinations in my Mardu burn list. I gotta say, I've been pleasantly surprised by it. I initially thought it would be far too slow for Burn, but it's surprisingly easy to hit two energy counters. I've found that one of two things are happening--either the opponent is hitting me, or they aren't. If they are, I'm getting energy. If they aren't, It's doing a Shrine of Burning Rage impression that costs no mana to pop, while I'm drawing cards that don't need energy, or drawing fetches that can be cracked to give me energy. In addition, I've been waiting to pop the card until I need it, to gain more energy in case I ever draw a second one. Of course, they're great in multiples, each instance of damage giving the energy needed to pop one of the cards. My guess is that Gonti's is about a turn slower than Rift Bolt on average. The one major downside is that it's an awful topdeck if you and your opponent are both staring at lethal, and yes that's a very real negative. I've played perhaps 40 or so games with it and it hasn't happened to me yet, but I can see why that would be brutal.
The deck has some deckbuilding considerations. I play fetch heavy, both to help ensure I get my colors when I need them, and also to help trigger Gonti. I moved Blaze to the side, because sometimes I want to fetch on my turn for Gonti, and because the format has slowed down so much I don't believe it's the auto-kill spell it used to be (and also because I needed room to pack everything in here). Also, you have to accept you'll be starting every game at 14. You just will. My hope is that my eight sources of maindeck lifegain will help mitigate that.
Here's the list I've been running. It runs 22 different versions of Lightning Bolt, to my knowledge the most of any deck in Modern.
The deck is designed to be as efficient at goldfishing as possible, and needs about 8.3 mana to drop someone from 20.
I've tested this last night in our regular wed night modern LGS:
- DnT: very very tough. 0-2. 18 lands hurt a lot against thalia
- Storm: Easy to outrace. 2-0 However, I only had 3 wear//tear so for the missing one I put a rakdos charm, and had it in starting hand so when past in flames got cast I responded by clearing the graveyard
- Boros burn (drev in s/b): 2-0. 2x gonti's mechanitions and threats on hand. 8 lifegain versus their 4 lifegain plus 4 antilifegain. Found it interesting that I could sit back and play control pretty well when gonnti's deployeyd, with or without counters
- friendly round: eldrazitron. touch matchups and close races but impossible againsnt chalices
- RG ponza land destruction prison: 0-2. turn 2 blood moon was tough. 2nd game I mull to 4 (no lands). Friendly game with s/b still in deck games were still close but once lifegain comes in (e.g. primal command) it's gg.
Glad to hear the deck did well enough for you. If you notice, the losses came from decks that messed with your lands (DNT, Ponza). Merfolk is rough for us as well. I think this would be true regardless of which version of Burn you run. I'm especially glad to hear that you went 2-0 against Boros Burn, as that's the obvious deck I lose percentage points against with my build.
I also brought it to my LGS on Monday and went 3-1, but all of my matchups happened to be aggressive (Affinity, Jeskai Midrange, and Merfolk x2, one of which I lost to), so I boarded out the black every chance I got. Nothing to really report, although I did win every game pre-board game I played except my round one with Affinity.
It seem you are much more into Burn then I ever was (I still love the game and play every week), however work and general life responsibilities have been taking a lot of my time, and I'm simply not as knowledgable about the game, the meta, and the deck as I used to be.
If you would be interested in taking over the Burn Primer, I would be happy to pass the flame off to you!
Thanks for the praise and the offer. I think I could do an passable job of providing objective analysis for a primer, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it unless the Burn community here is ok with me doing it. If I can be honest, general life responsibilities have kept me from playing much at all in the last several months outside of a PPTQ, so that's an issue for me as well.
I have a few ideas that I think might be useful to people, though. I want to get my deck script fully functional so that I can goldfish games properly, and I think that would provide some useful insights. I also have my own personal game history in a spreadsheet (2392 games, 905 matches, a lot on Cockatrice) broken down by matchup. I've thought about opening that up to others who wish to self report results in order to crowd-source win-rates, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I suppose a google form could accomplish that, but it would be tedious for people to self enter a lot of single matches.
I know I would love for you to take over the primer, not to disrespect all the work Arkaedrian put into it. If he doesn't have the time anymore, I think you'd be great at it.
More for fun and to better understand Burn than anything concrete, I decided to test out Gonti's Machinations in my Mardu burn list. I gotta say, I've been pleasantly surprised by it. I initially thought it would be far too slow for Burn, but it's surprisingly easy to hit two energy counters. I've found that one of two things are happening--either the opponent is hitting me, or they aren't. If they are, I'm getting energy. If they aren't, It's doing a Shrine of Burning Rage impression that costs no mana to pop, while I'm drawing cards that don't need energy, or drawing fetches that can be cracked to give me energy. In addition, I've been waiting to pop the card until I need it, to gain more energy in case I ever draw a second one. Of course, they're great in multiples, each instance of damage giving the energy needed to pop one of the cards. My guess is that Gonti's is about a turn slower than Rift Bolt on average. The one major downside is that it's an awful topdeck if you and your opponent are both staring at lethal, and yes that's a very real negative. I've played perhaps 40 or so games with it and it hasn't happened to me yet, but I can see why that would be brutal.
The deck has some deckbuilding considerations. I play fetch heavy, both to help ensure I get my colors when I need them, and also to help trigger Gonti. I moved Blaze to the side, because sometimes I want to fetch on my turn for Gonti, and because the format has slowed down so much I don't believe it's the auto-kill spell it used to be (and also because I needed room to pack everything in here). Also, you have to accept you'll be starting every game at 14. You just will. My hope is that my eight sources of maindeck lifegain will help mitigate that.
Here's the list I've been running. It runs 22 different versions of Lightning Bolt, to my knowledge the most of any deck in Modern.
The deck is designed to be as efficient at goldfishing as possible, and needs about 8.3 mana to drop someone from 20.
Wow! Now there is a very interesting card addition.
It does look a little weird upon first inspection. However dealing 3 damage and gaining 3 life for one mana investment is pretty crazy! If the deck can function on 18 lands, that's pretty incredible too.
Once you have the energy it can function at instant speed too, being able to activate it when you want it. I feel like this should be useful somehow in play, but can't think of any examples yet.
Curious to know how this works out!
Yeah, the card was definitely talked about when it first got spoiled, but it was generally decided that it wasn't very good. To be honest, I was one of the people thinking that as well.
It's funny, even with 18 lands I find myself flooding more than I do starved. I really love the low curve of this build, and I feel like it has many of the benefits of the Mardu builds going around, without playing weaker 1 mana burn spells or too many Shard Volleys to make that happen.
One game, I was playing against some sort of dredge/aggro deck. I think it was that new dredgevine deck floating around, or something similar to it. I had a Gonti's out with an energy counter already. He went to his turn, played a swiftspear, bolted me for three (giving me a second energy counter), then used the bolt to fuel a Become Immense. He swung at me for lethal, but I popped the Gonti's in response, surviving it. I was able to finish him off next turn.
Another game I played a Gonti's, then fetched (one energy counter). Played a second Gonti's, then fetched (three counters). Played a THIRD Gonti's, then fetched (6 counters). Then popped them all for an 18 point lifeswing.
Gonti's definitely has some hoops you have to jump through. But, the things is, all of the hoops you need to jump through to make it happen, tends to happen naturally as an effect of playing a three color deck in the modern format. I need to take damage twice? I fetch almost every turn, and opponents are usually trying to kill me with creatures. It stretches my manabase to three colors, making it more painful? The card gains me the life back. It's a permanent and can be destroyed? Please bring in enchantment removal against me, I'm begging you. Not to mention, Abrupt Decay is at an all-time low. It's too slow of a card? False--it's just as fast as the opponent dictates it to be, based on their level of aggression. The times when it's slow are the times where you can afford for it to be slow.
It seems like a really uniquely designed card that has answers built in to all of its problems, not only in the card itself but the format as a whole.
have u tried collective brutality over lightning helix?
I don't think Brutality would be good for me. If I'm just using the drain effect, it's just worse than Helix. If I'm using others, then I might be discarding bolts to do so. Helix is already my least favorite card in the maindeck. But thank you for the suggestion.
More for fun and to better understand Burn than anything concrete, I decided to test out Gonti's Machinations in my Mardu burn list. I gotta say, I've been pleasantly surprised by it. I initially thought it would be far too slow for Burn, but it's surprisingly easy to hit two energy counters. I've found that one of two things are happening--either the opponent is hitting me, or they aren't. If they are, I'm getting energy. If they aren't, It's doing a Shrine of Burning Rage impression that costs no mana to pop, while I'm drawing cards that don't need energy, or drawing fetches that can be cracked to give me energy. In addition, I've been waiting to pop the card until I need it, to gain more energy in case I ever draw a second one. Of course, they're great in multiples, each instance of damage giving the energy needed to pop one of the cards. My guess is that Gonti's is about a turn slower than Rift Bolt on average. The one major downside is that it's an awful topdeck if you and your opponent are both staring at lethal, and yes that's a very real negative. I've played perhaps 40 or so games with it and it hasn't happened to me yet, but I can see why that would be brutal.
The deck has some deckbuilding considerations. I play fetch heavy, both to help ensure I get my colors when I need them, and also to help trigger Gonti. I moved Blaze to the side, because sometimes I want to fetch on my turn for Gonti, and because the format has slowed down so much I don't believe it's the auto-kill spell it used to be (and also because I needed room to pack everything in here). Also, you have to accept you'll be starting every game at 14. You just will. My hope is that my eight sources of maindeck lifegain will help mitigate that.
Here's the list I've been running. It runs 22 different versions of Lightning Bolt, to my knowledge the most of any deck in Modern.
3. When taking advice try to look at the benefits of what their saying and if their overly jaded one way or another. Finding someone who is too over the top and pushes their agenda/reasoning too much may (not always) signal being too/so bias towards one direction they are blind/ignorant/refuse to even consider the possibility there is a benefit to the other view and your not allowed to breathe air if you dont follow their advice.
It's pretty clear that this inflammatory statement is targeted solely at myself. Providing well-reasoned arguments for a position and standing by those arguments is not remotely "ignorant".
For what it's worth, for the past few days I've been PMing with elcon concerning strategy between the three versions of Burn I consider to be competitive (Boros, Naya, Mardu). At no point did he ever force his opinion down my throat, or tell me that I was wrong for considering all three of these versions of Burn. He performed some calculations for me out of the goodness of his heart, and let me make my own decisions based on the raw numbers he provided. I think if people were to read our conversations, it would be all but impossible to say he was pushing an agenda towards me.
I think people are reading a negative tone where there isn't one. It might be neutral or factual, but it's not disrespectful. Elcon provides statistical data to the burn forum and then offers his opinions based on his results. I don't really feel it's his responsibility to say "it's my opinion" before every post--that should be implicitly understood.
For the record, the numbers I saw are making me reconsider Boros as the version of Burn I want to be running--and at no point did he suggest that. It's all from me.
For the record I never called him out but now I have for him calling people out for reading too much or misinterpreting his words then doing that to others and claiming victim on both. I was not attacking him. Please reread my whole post. I agree people find negative where there is none. There are those who fit into this category and it does not have to be here on the forum it could be people at a store/event/even friends. My statement was more a generalization. And more about looking at the benefits of playing Boros and Naya.
I never explicitly said you were. I merely stated that I don't believe elcon forces agendas down a person's throat in a way that is relevant to the current conversation, but I wasn't talking about you at all. I was speaking generally.
Do you see what that looks like, and why it's hard to believe it's not what you were doing?
3. When taking advice try to look at the benefits of what their saying and if their overly jaded one way or another. Finding someone who is too over the top and pushes their agenda/reasoning too much may (not always) signal being too/so bias towards one direction they are blind/ignorant/refuse to even consider the possibility there is a benefit to the other view and your not allowed to breathe air if you dont follow their advice.
It's pretty clear that this inflammatory statement is targeted solely at myself. Providing well-reasoned arguments for a position and standing by those arguments is not remotely "ignorant".
For what it's worth, for the past few days I've been PMing with elcon concerning strategy between the three versions of Burn I consider to be competitive (Boros, Naya, Mardu). At no point did he ever force his opinion down my throat, or tell me that I was wrong for considering all three of these versions of Burn. He performed some calculations for me out of the goodness of his heart, and let me make my own decisions based on the raw numbers he provided. I think if people were to read our conversations, it would be all but impossible to say he was pushing an agenda towards me.
I think people are reading a negative tone where there isn't one. It might be neutral or factual, but it's not disrespectful. Elcon provides statistical data to the burn forum and then offers his opinions based on his results. I don't really feel it's his responsibility to say "it's my opinion" before every post--that should be implicitly understood.
For the record, the numbers I saw are making me reconsider Boros as the version of Burn I want to be running--and at no point did he suggest that. It's all from me.
I'm planning on adding a rudimentary goldfishing algorithm to the script, but it will take some time. Average mana needed is somewhat related to how many turns it will take, but you may get stuck on 2 for a few turns and that will prolong the game and the effect will be worse on a higher CMC deck. That doesn't affect how much mana you need, but does affect how quickly you reach that much mana.
But that wouldn't practically matter unless your deck needed more than 9 mana to kill, because the fastest goldfish is T4, correct?
Boros/Naya needs 7.27 cards and 10.75 mana to deal 20 damage (note my old creature model is wrong, and that means the average damage number is too low). Mardu needs 9.1 mana to get there on the same number of cards. To deal 17 damage, Boros/Naya needs 9.15 mana and Mardu needs 7.75 mana.
Would you explain how you calculated this, so I can better understand?
Shrine all but fizzles against aggro decks (where Eidolon would shine outside of Affinity), and trying to go long against decks built for disruption plays right into what they want. I'll be honest, it feels like a no brainer.
Shrine is BETTER then Eidolon in the aggro MUs because we're in the control role.
- - -
If we ONLY care about reducing the opp. down into zero as quickly as possible then Mardu Burn would be the best burn deck (since it has the highest chances for goldfishes). I believe the rise of Boros burn shows that grinding out victories is a thing, we should hope for the best (T4 wins) but prepare for the worse (T5+ games due to discard, land denial, taxes, bad draws, counters, life-gain and critical creature kills).
That's exactly why Eidolon is better. A turn 2 do nothing artifact is infinitely worse than a turn two card that hits them for 2 damage and trades with a creature.
I agree with you on Mardu burn though, that's what I play. I would play Boros if my meta was aggro heavy, but it's pretty slow.
Honestly I think it's just a race. Atarka's Command should be really good against them. Don't be afraid to use it as a pump, as opposed to holding it up for lifegain. Or even a land drop if it lets you play a bolt while he's tapped out. If it helps you not get countered, it's basically "preventing three lifegain". Graveyard hate wouldn't be awful, between Snapcaster Mage and Crucible of Worlds. Also, between Colonnade and Gideons, I think I'd bring in Path, although I'm not 100% sure that's the right call. Also, you can hold up fetches and fetch/shock in response to Timely Reinforcements, potentially negating the lifegain. You can also cast instant-speed burn spells in response to them fetching to help play around counterspells. Basically, go all in. Hurt yourself as much as possible and try to close that game out last turn.
I'm of the opinion that graveyard hate isn't currently very necessary for Burn. All the decks that utilize the graveyard I would say we either race, or disrupt with Path and instant speed burn (such as GDS).
I'm looking to start to get into BGx, specifically BG Rock. I was hoping you'd be able to critique my initial build for me.
3x Overgrown Tomb
1x Forest
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
4x Blooming Marsh
3x Hissing Quagmire
1x Twilight Mire
3x Ghost Quarter
Creatures
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tireless Tracker
3x Scavenging Ooze
2x Eternal Witness
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
4x Fatal Push
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Leyline of the Void
3x Fulminator Mage
3x Collective Brutality
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Natural State
1x Abrupt Decay
I cut the Kitchen Finks because I think at two copies it wouldn't consistently show up enough for what I wanted it to do, which is be an early game lifegainer/blocker and I was struggling to add a third. I essentially split the slots into a third Ooze, and a second Liliana, the Last Hope. I really like having six Lillys for Goyf, and this Liliana can do a great Eternal Witness impression if the game goes long. With the new planeswalker rules coming up, I feel it's safe to do this.
Aside from that, I have a single Engineered Explosives in the board to be a sometimes-third Flaying Tendrils and also an artifact board wipe, because I know my pure artifact destruction is low. I hope the EE and the last Abrupt Decay will make up for it.
Glad to hear the deck did well enough for you. If you notice, the losses came from decks that messed with your lands (DNT, Ponza). Merfolk is rough for us as well. I think this would be true regardless of which version of Burn you run. I'm especially glad to hear that you went 2-0 against Boros Burn, as that's the obvious deck I lose percentage points against with my build.
I also brought it to my LGS on Monday and went 3-1, but all of my matchups happened to be aggressive (Affinity, Jeskai Midrange, and Merfolk x2, one of which I lost to), so I boarded out the black every chance I got. Nothing to really report, although I did win every game pre-board game I played except my round one with Affinity.
I know I would love for you to take over the primer, not to disrespect all the work Arkaedrian put into it. If he doesn't have the time anymore, I think you'd be great at it.
Yeah, the card was definitely talked about when it first got spoiled, but it was generally decided that it wasn't very good. To be honest, I was one of the people thinking that as well.
It's funny, even with 18 lands I find myself flooding more than I do starved. I really love the low curve of this build, and I feel like it has many of the benefits of the Mardu builds going around, without playing weaker 1 mana burn spells or too many Shard Volleys to make that happen.
One game, I was playing against some sort of dredge/aggro deck. I think it was that new dredgevine deck floating around, or something similar to it. I had a Gonti's out with an energy counter already. He went to his turn, played a swiftspear, bolted me for three (giving me a second energy counter), then used the bolt to fuel a Become Immense. He swung at me for lethal, but I popped the Gonti's in response, surviving it. I was able to finish him off next turn.
Another game I played a Gonti's, then fetched (one energy counter). Played a second Gonti's, then fetched (three counters). Played a THIRD Gonti's, then fetched (6 counters). Then popped them all for an 18 point lifeswing.
Gonti's definitely has some hoops you have to jump through. But, the things is, all of the hoops you need to jump through to make it happen, tends to happen naturally as an effect of playing a three color deck in the modern format. I need to take damage twice? I fetch almost every turn, and opponents are usually trying to kill me with creatures. It stretches my manabase to three colors, making it more painful? The card gains me the life back. It's a permanent and can be destroyed? Please bring in enchantment removal against me, I'm begging you. Not to mention, Abrupt Decay is at an all-time low. It's too slow of a card? False--it's just as fast as the opponent dictates it to be, based on their level of aggression. The times when it's slow are the times where you can afford for it to be slow.
It seems like a really uniquely designed card that has answers built in to all of its problems, not only in the card itself but the format as a whole.
I don't think Brutality would be good for me. If I'm just using the drain effect, it's just worse than Helix. If I'm using others, then I might be discarding bolts to do so. Helix is already my least favorite card in the maindeck. But thank you for the suggestion.
The deck has some deckbuilding considerations. I play fetch heavy, both to help ensure I get my colors when I need them, and also to help trigger Gonti. I moved Blaze to the side, because sometimes I want to fetch on my turn for Gonti, and because the format has slowed down so much I don't believe it's the auto-kill spell it used to be (and also because I needed room to pack everything in here). Also, you have to accept you'll be starting every game at 14. You just will. My hope is that my eight sources of maindeck lifegain will help mitigate that.
Here's the list I've been running. It runs 22 different versions of Lightning Bolt, to my knowledge the most of any deck in Modern.
2x Blood Crypt
2x Sacred Foundry
2x Mountain
12x Fetches
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 Skullcrack
4x Searing Blaze
4x Wear // Tear
3x Path to Exile
The deck is designed to be as efficient at goldfishing as possible, and needs about 8.3 mana to drop someone from 20.
I never explicitly said you were. I merely stated that I don't believe elcon forces agendas down a person's throat in a way that is relevant to the current conversation, but I wasn't talking about you at all. I was speaking generally.
Do you see what that looks like, and why it's hard to believe it's not what you were doing?
For what it's worth, for the past few days I've been PMing with elcon concerning strategy between the three versions of Burn I consider to be competitive (Boros, Naya, Mardu). At no point did he ever force his opinion down my throat, or tell me that I was wrong for considering all three of these versions of Burn. He performed some calculations for me out of the goodness of his heart, and let me make my own decisions based on the raw numbers he provided. I think if people were to read our conversations, it would be all but impossible to say he was pushing an agenda towards me.
I think people are reading a negative tone where there isn't one. It might be neutral or factual, but it's not disrespectful. Elcon provides statistical data to the burn forum and then offers his opinions based on his results. I don't really feel it's his responsibility to say "it's my opinion" before every post--that should be implicitly understood.
For the record, the numbers I saw are making me reconsider Boros as the version of Burn I want to be running--and at no point did he suggest that. It's all from me.
But that wouldn't practically matter unless your deck needed more than 9 mana to kill, because the fastest goldfish is T4, correct?
EDIT: Nevermind, I think that's backwards.
Would you explain how you calculated this, so I can better understand?
That's exactly why Eidolon is better. A turn 2 do nothing artifact is infinitely worse than a turn two card that hits them for 2 damage and trades with a creature.
I agree with you on Mardu burn though, that's what I play. I would play Boros if my meta was aggro heavy, but it's pretty slow.