60/40? 50/50? That's quite optimistic, don't you think? Either you are delusional, or you're not being honest here. I have both Living End and Burn built, I have played both sides of the matchup, and I can say with 100% confidence that the matchup is bad, bad, bad. My record in REL events a big fat goose egg, and in testing, the only matches that I've won were where the Burn player mulliganed and missed land drops, or he didn't have the Skullcrack or Atarka's Command when I drew life gain. The matchup is unwinnable with the average draw, and I would even say it ties with UB Faeries for worst matchup. When I said the matchup was 90/10, I wasn't exaggerating, nor speaking out of fear. I was being realistic. I have read many Burn and Living End tournament reports on this forum and Reddit as well as watched videos, and everytime there was a Burn vs. Living End match, the Burn player always won. If you don't believe my testimony, there are several posts in this primer that say how abyssmal the matchup is.
P.S. I am aware that I said you have a 47.2% chance to win the match on the assumption you got Leyline game 2 if the opponent didn't side in Revelry, and then get Leyline again game 3. So, don't bother to point that out.
You're forgetting that Burn will still press the advantage with whatever creatures it has on board, and keep mana up in anticipation of a lifegain spell. The Burn player will force you to make the first move by doing this. Also, Timely Reinforcements gives you blockers and can buy you up to two more turns.
Burn is the most consistent turn 4 deck in the format, and I feel waiting until turn 3 to play a lifegain spell feels a little too late. Which is whay I brought up Refraction Trap and Soul Spike. You can play shocklands tapped, but then you're not cycling and casting your spells on curve You will have enough power on the board for a 3 turn clock, and that's more than enough time for Burn to kill you. Will you play shocklands untapped or not? Damned if you do; damned if you don't.
I think the best card to deal with Burn (though not by much) is Leyline of Sanctity. In game 2, it's likely the Burn player won't side in Revelry as there is no way he could know what Burn hate cards are in your sideboard, assuming you're playing at a very large event of course. Now, assuming you won game 2, and your opponent is on the play game 3 and sided in Destructive Revelry, there is a 44.5% chance the Burn player draws at least one of the 4 by turn 2, 48.8% on turn 3, and 52.8% on turn 4. It still doesn't look good, but I'll take a 47.2% chance to win a match that's usually 90/10 in Burn's favor.
If they're swinging and keeping up mana, I'm happy. Wasted mana is more life. And if you feel like waiting until turn 3 is too late, then timely is not worth it anyways. Refraction Trap is a nice thought, but I feel it won't be enough. And Soul Spike is just plain bad. If it discarded instead of exiling, it would be worth consideration. But to spend 3 cards in order to kill a goblin guide and gain 4 life? The only thing that is good for is getting extra Living Ends out of your hand, but still not worth it.
Leyline of Sanctity is an interesting card, but look at your percentages. You say how unlikely it is they will have the Destructive Revelry, I say how unlikely it is that you have the Leyline. Devoting 4 SB slots that are only really good for burn and only really good if you draw them in your opener? People have done 4 Leylines before, I'm just not on that plan.
*sigh* You're still not getting it. You're still losing life every turn from creature combat, and you're on your backfoot. You say you're happy, but what are you doing in the mean time to make sure you don't lose? You have to play something to not get burned out, and the moment you do, the Burn player will throw everything he has at your face. You say he's wasting mana, but you are also wasting mana if you think your opponent will play Skullcrack first.
As for Leyline, I'd rather deal with 4 enchantment removal than 4+ anti life gain spells. If I'm not mistaken, your chances of drawing a Leyline up to a mulligan to 5 is roughly 72%.
Not so true, because our Verdant Catacombs (Number 1 fetch) can get basic Forest or Swamp, and against Burn I always try to fetch for basics whenever possible. Brindle Boar is on-color. Sure, most lists run a Godless Shrine and a Temple Garden, but when you can get your lifegain by fetching a basic instead of the Temple Garden then you are in much better shape, 2 life is a world of difference against burn.
Also, Timely Reinforcements is a Sorcery, so they can Skullcrack in response. Boar you can pop whenever they are tapped out, or in response to a Skullcrack. If they leave up mana to keep you from gaining life, then they are effectively giving you extra life by not sending that burn to your face. And Boar is reusable, often getting you 8 life per in a matchup. In this deck, Boar is waaaaaaay better than Timely. If you need more than 4 life gain cards, that's when you can look at Timely as a possible solution.
You're forgetting that Burn will still press the advantage with whatever creatures it has on board, and keep mana up in anticipation of a lifegain spell. The Burn player will force you to make the first move by doing this. Also, Timely Reinforcements gives you blockers and can buy you up to two more turns.
Burn is the most consistent turn 4 deck in the format, and I feel waiting until turn 3 to play a lifegain spell feels a little too late. Which is whay I brought up Refraction Trap and Soul Spike. You can play shocklands tapped, but then you're not cycling and casting your spells on curve You will have enough power on the board for a 3 turn clock, and that's more than enough time for Burn to kill you. Will you play shocklands untapped or not? Damned if you do; damned if you don't.
I think the best card to deal with Burn (though not by much) is Leyline of Sanctity. In game 2, it's likely the Burn player won't side in Revelry as there is no way he could know what Burn hate cards are in your sideboard, assuming you're playing at a very large event of course. Now, assuming you won game 2, and your opponent is on the play game 3 and sided in Destructive Revelry, there is a 44.5% chance the Burn player draws at least one of the 4 by turn 2, 48.8% on turn 3, and 52.8% on turn 4. It still doesn't look good, but I'll take a 47.2% chance to win a match that's usually 90/10 in Burn's favor.
Part of the problem with running white sideboard cards against burn is that you need a white shockland to cast them, so they often offset their own life gain by effectively costing life
That's true with every shockland. You can say the same thing for Stomping Ground and Brindle Boar. So, what's your point?
Okay guys, so I playtested with a friend 3 match and he piloted Burn because I wanted to gain more experience against the deck, knowing it very well (I play RWB Burn), but also knowing that it's a very though matchup (if not impossible to win). So, I ended up 0-3:
- Match 1, 1-2:
I won game one because I had multiples Street Wraith and I used swampwalk over his Blood Crypt. Then lost the other two games.
- Match 2, 0-2:
I added 2 Gnaw to the Bone and 2 Avalanche Riders for intense land hate in order to cut his ressources. Nothing worked out.
- Match 3, 1-2:
I won game 2 because of land destruction, blowing up Sacred Foundry and making it impossible for him to cast Boros Charm.
So, aside Brindle Boar which I'll add to replace my 2 Boil in the sideboard, is there anything we can do in terms of strategy? I've read the primer and I cascaded quite a few time to sweep Goblin Guide and Eidolon of the Great Revel, but nevertheless, I felt that if I won a game, it was mostly not going to happen again in the match.
Cheers!
There is the siding out Living Ends for Kor Firewalker plan.
I have seen a few Burn lists run Refraction Trap for the mirror.
Occasionally, I do see a deck run Phyrexian Unlife. You don't take poison damage the instance your life total drops below zero, and it effectively gains you 10 more life. The downside here is you crack fetches, nor play shocklands untapped when you're below zero life.
If you play Architects of Will, you can run Soul Spike. You can kill Eidolon before you cascade, and it also lets you to safely tap out against Twin, and you can catch Infect off guard.
Here's the statistical breakdown for when you the your opponent both have Stony Silence, Wear//Tear, Spell Pierce, or [insert Stony Silence trump here]. Let's assume you both run 2 copies of the respected cards, and you both draw at least one copy of each.
Turn 2
On the draw (both players see 8 cards): 6.25%
On the play (you see 8, Opp sees 9): 7%
Turn 3
On the draw (both see 9 cards): 7.84%
On the play (you see 9, Opp sees 10): 8.68%
Turn 4
On the draw (both see 10): 9.6%
On the play (you see 10, Opp sees 11): 10.54%
Note: I haven't factored in drawing a colored source to play the anti-hate card, so the chances are actually a little lower than stated.
As you can see, it's better to just play threats and curve out, than hold mana up for a Stony Silence that's very unlikely to be cast. Most of the time, the anit-hate card will be a dead draw.
It's also worth noting that Affinity lists nowadays are moving away from Spell Pierce.
I can't believe what I'm reading! Wear//Tear aligns better than Spell Pierce when against Stony Silence, period! W/T gets rid of Stony Silence under the same conditions Spell Pierce does, as well as after it sticks on the battlefield.
However, we have to curve out on threats in order to win. We can't afford to leave mana open for a Stony Silence that will likely not see play during the game. This is why Thoughtseize is the better option, but even it becomes useless against Stony Silence after turn 2. This is why I advocate Seal of Primordium as a replacement for Wear//Tear. It's good in all stages of the like Tear, but without the constant investment of mana. The opponent is forced to sandbag SS until he draws a second one or gets rid of the Seal. In the mean time, it also gives Thoughtseize more mileage by taking the sandbagged Stony Silence.
As for Spell Pierce, I'm getting more and more underwhelmed by this card. I feel all it's good for is to counter Shatterstorm, Creeping Corrosion, and combo pieces. But since a lot of combo decks are non interactive, and you can easily assemble a threatening boardstate by turn 4, I think Stubborn Denial would just be better here.
Thanks for the videos, always fun to watch and learn from others. Quick question about R3 though. I saw you didn't side in Deflecting Palm. Any reasoning behind that? I thought it was a common strategy, so just wanted to hear opinions against it. Too reactive?
Also, too bad on R4G3! Game 2 was sweet though.
Because, you don't need it. Living End is practically a bye for Burn. Also, the Living End player was an idiot. He shouldn't have put the land on ktop with Architects' trigger given how mana screwed the Burn player was, and he shouldv'e sided out the Street Wraiths for game 2.
is there a tempered steel affinity decklist that i can have a look? finding my match-up against grixis delver to be quite bad. any solution or sideboard card i can consider?
I'm wondering about that too...dunno why this thread has become stagnant all of a sudden!
It certainly has slowed down. Come to think of it, whatever happened to Dyne? The last I've heard from him was during KTK spoilers. Though he may have been condescending, he was one of the few people in this thread who knew what he was talking about.
Every mention of Pod and Treasure Cruise should crossed out and/or should be replaced with Collected Company.
The language for the analysis of Ball Lightning is confusing. "Sure, it can save you in some situations, but it also makes those situations more common." What does this mean?
So I played FNM on Friday came third, the two most interesting games was my top table loss to RGTron of all things and my first round victory over living twin. 1St game he had no lands through my destroying them, second game will be remembered for my opponent finally managing to play exarch through a barrage of land hate, hmm so I asked him why he's on this course of LE rather than traditional build. His answer was basically the same as every one else's on here, it's fun, it's an alternative win con, it's hard to defeat two different combos etc. So I showed him the error in his thinking, beasted his exarch, violent outburst, job done!! Living twin is cute, I guess if your opponent has no interaction it may work but as a deck, in my opinion it's awful.
I run Elves, they're fantastic fun, can be incredibly fast, T 2 very possible but they share the same problem as twinning end, if your opponent had the smallest amount of interaction to the combo, your stuffed and the ten cards you've wasted in those slots may as well be lands!!
You can't judge the deck off the result of one matchup. What was the Living Twin player's record for the tournament?
I have a question for those of you playing Twinning End, particularly the ones who are running Kiki-Jiki. Do you think 1-2 Gifts Ungiven is playable? You can get Kiki and Exarch and cascade on your following turn for game, or use it to get a bunch of cyclers for value.
P.S. I am aware that I said you have a 47.2% chance to win the match on the assumption you got Leyline game 2 if the opponent didn't side in Revelry, and then get Leyline again game 3. So, don't bother to point that out.
*sigh* You're still not getting it. You're still losing life every turn from creature combat, and you're on your backfoot. You say you're happy, but what are you doing in the mean time to make sure you don't lose? You have to play something to not get burned out, and the moment you do, the Burn player will throw everything he has at your face. You say he's wasting mana, but you are also wasting mana if you think your opponent will play Skullcrack first.
As for Leyline, I'd rather deal with 4 enchantment removal than 4+ anti life gain spells. If I'm not mistaken, your chances of drawing a Leyline up to a mulligan to 5 is roughly 72%.
You're forgetting that Burn will still press the advantage with whatever creatures it has on board, and keep mana up in anticipation of a lifegain spell. The Burn player will force you to make the first move by doing this. Also, Timely Reinforcements gives you blockers and can buy you up to two more turns.
Burn is the most consistent turn 4 deck in the format, and I feel waiting until turn 3 to play a lifegain spell feels a little too late. Which is whay I brought up Refraction Trap and Soul Spike. You can play shocklands tapped, but then you're not cycling and casting your spells on curve You will have enough power on the board for a 3 turn clock, and that's more than enough time for Burn to kill you. Will you play shocklands untapped or not? Damned if you do; damned if you don't.
I think the best card to deal with Burn (though not by much) is Leyline of Sanctity. In game 2, it's likely the Burn player won't side in Revelry as there is no way he could know what Burn hate cards are in your sideboard, assuming you're playing at a very large event of course. Now, assuming you won game 2, and your opponent is on the play game 3 and sided in Destructive Revelry, there is a 44.5% chance the Burn player draws at least one of the 4 by turn 2, 48.8% on turn 3, and 52.8% on turn 4. It still doesn't look good, but I'll take a 47.2% chance to win a match that's usually 90/10 in Burn's favor.
That's true with every shockland. You can say the same thing for Stomping Ground and Brindle Boar. So, what's your point?
@feletroica: You have way to much artifact and enchantment hate in the sideboard. There's also a glaring omission of Spellskite and Thoughtseize.
There is the siding out Living Ends for Kor Firewalker plan.
I have seen a few Burn lists run Refraction Trap for the mirror.
Occasionally, I do see a deck run Phyrexian Unlife. You don't take poison damage the instance your life total drops below zero, and it effectively gains you 10 more life. The downside here is you crack fetches, nor play shocklands untapped when you're below zero life.
If you play Architects of Will, you can run Soul Spike. You can kill Eidolon before you cascade, and it also lets you to safely tap out against Twin, and you can catch Infect off guard.
Edit: How can I forget Timely Reinforcements?
Turn 2
On the draw (both players see 8 cards): 6.25%
On the play (you see 8, Opp sees 9): 7%
Turn 3
On the draw (both see 9 cards): 7.84%
On the play (you see 9, Opp sees 10): 8.68%
Turn 4
On the draw (both see 10): 9.6%
On the play (you see 10, Opp sees 11): 10.54%
Note: I haven't factored in drawing a colored source to play the anti-hate card, so the chances are actually a little lower than stated.
As you can see, it's better to just play threats and curve out, than hold mana up for a Stony Silence that's very unlikely to be cast. Most of the time, the anit-hate card will be a dead draw.
It's also worth noting that Affinity lists nowadays are moving away from Spell Pierce.
However, we have to curve out on threats in order to win. We can't afford to leave mana open for a Stony Silence that will likely not see play during the game. This is why Thoughtseize is the better option, but even it becomes useless against Stony Silence after turn 2. This is why I advocate Seal of Primordium as a replacement for Wear//Tear. It's good in all stages of the like Tear, but without the constant investment of mana. The opponent is forced to sandbag SS until he draws a second one or gets rid of the Seal. In the mean time, it also gives Thoughtseize more mileage by taking the sandbagged Stony Silence.
As for Spell Pierce, I'm getting more and more underwhelmed by this card. I feel all it's good for is to counter Shatterstorm, Creeping Corrosion, and combo pieces. But since a lot of combo decks are non interactive, and you can easily assemble a threatening boardstate by turn 4, I think Stubborn Denial would just be better here.
Because, you don't need it. Living End is practically a bye for Burn. Also, the Living End player was an idiot. He shouldn't have put the land on ktop with Architects' trigger given how mana screwed the Burn player was, and he shouldv'e sided out the Street Wraiths for game 2.
It certainly has slowed down. Come to think of it, whatever happened to Dyne? The last I've heard from him was during KTK spoilers. Though he may have been condescending, he was one of the few people in this thread who knew what he was talking about.
You mentioned Blackcleave Cliffs, but have made no mention of Copperline Gorge.
You mentioned Tempest of Light, but have made no mention of Back to Nature.
There is no mention of Pyrite Spellbomb, nor Path to Exile.
Every mention of Pod and Treasure Cruise should crossed out and/or should be replaced with Collected Company.
The language for the analysis of Ball Lightning is confusing. "Sure, it can save you in some situations, but it also makes those situations more common." What does this mean?
Is "I" in reference to you or DOLZero?
It's time to rev up that Destruction to the max!
You can't judge the deck off the result of one matchup. What was the Living Twin player's record for the tournament?