MTG Salvation

I've been off of here for a few weeks now, wanted to give a few thoughts:

1. Dire fleet daredevil is what I think of as "cute."
Where does it shine for us? Against snapcaster decks--they can snap in response and blow you out. You've now got a 2/1 that they can kill before you evewr get a chance to attack.

Against Jund/Abzan--what do we want to cast vs them? Push a goyf? Lightning Bolt? Path? 3 mana for those don't seem like where we want to be.

The mirror? Kor Firewalker is just better.

2. The Flame of Keld
You have to play it late--so you don't discard your hand. Also bear in mind we often want to hold up Skullcrack. This has a negative synergy.
When we play it, it does nothing assuming we've emptied our hand
The appeal being the draw 2--each draw is 2/3 a burn spell. Whereas another burn spell is 1/1 a burn spell.
The 3rd mode/level isn't really something we'll utilize. We've emptied our hand to get the draw two. If both your drawn cards are burn--are you going to hold it up just to fire this off with the extra damage next turn? If you've emptied your hand and hit more burn spells off this--they're already dead.

Quote from Max WB »

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.

Quote from mrPandarian »

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?

I think you're falling into a lot of fallacies.

1. Eidolon is the best card against control. If they can't answer it, you win. That simple. Sometimes you have to walk them into letting you cast it. Maybe you played a goblin guide turn 1. You attack. They path it. You play your 2nd land and your Eidolon. They don't want Eidolon to live. They'll path it. But they want to path it at instant speed so they can leave path to exile up. You cast Boros Charm. They spell snare it, they take 2. They path your Eidolon. They've taken 4 that they wouldn't have taken if you hadn't properly sequenced your play. These small percentages are how you get over the hump and beat control

2. Regarding discarding--they're going to cast an inquisition, and they're going to take a card from you. If they can get your rest in peace, so be it. but they're going to take a magic card from your hand. That doesn't make rest in peace any less good of a card. If they're on the play, they can inquisition anything out of our hand. You still play your best cards. If they inquisition and want your rest in peace--does that mean you get to keep your goblin guide and your Eidolon? Those sorts of things matter a lot.

An opponent telling you perfect card choices become less good--likely wants you to try some cute stuff and get punished.

Quote from rothgar13 »

Speaking of Naya, based on what I've seen from the MTGO meta thus far, the pendulum may be swinging back in that variant's direction. There's a downtick in aggressive decks (so the extra damage that variant takes from extra fetching for Atarka's Command matters less), and there's an uptick in annoying enchantments (so the relative value of Destructive Revelry has gone up). Has anyone else observed something similar?

This is a great take, and I've been considering it as well

Lots more control/mid-range.
I used to play vs affinity and humas all the time on mtgo, hardly seen them since the unban.

1. It's potentially bad against any deck.
2. You want 4 or 0.

If you want more creatures, consider Wild Nacatl
If you want a 1 mana 4 damage spell, consider prayer.

Hand 1: Keep. I've got a Turn 1 guide, 2 more things to play if I don't draw my 2nd land right away--and an Eidolon which is the best card in the deck. Hand is puregas, got a couple of turns to draw a land.

Hand 2: I'm probably keeping this. Makes the scry a bit awkward, but when you've already mulliganed once, having a Guide and something else to you can do with 1 land is about a good a start as you can hope for.

Hand 3: Keep. Can't imagine ever mulliganing to 4.

Hand 4: It's close. You've got a Guide and a Rift bolt you can play on 1 land. Feels like the type of hand that gets me in trouble though. Mulligan.

Hand 5: Keep. It's a good 7. Maybe on the draw I'm more concerned about playing control. But this is a get there hand.
If I mulligan to 6, what's the best I can hope for? 4 Bolts, 1 Guide, and a land? I'll probably see a couple of two drops and want a 2nd land--so I ship 5 spells and 2 lands and hope for 4 and 2 or 5 and 1. Either option is inferior. We can race affinity.

Quote from frozencajun »

Yes Etron is a bad matchup but having a possible out is better than just straight up concession when Chalice goes on 2.

Spree while a decent card in the match does mean a narrow card vs a card that can be used in more matches.

Also what some people seem to be missing, so let’s say you literally have any artifact or enchantment removal in hand and they don’t have a target. The ability to cycle to close out the game seems really strong. Cool you have DRev in your hand with no target on board so the 2 damage potential you had is instead a dead card.

Having a specific card for Chalice on 1 and 2 is a very niche instance that it's what you want. It having cucling is even more niche. It's just too much worst case scenario.

Eldrazi Tron is a bad matchup. Accept it.
When you have a chance to win--you want your anti-chalice card to cost 2 instead of 3. You need to be fast, they need to be slow. Casting 3 drops doesn't help you.

Chalice on 1 and 2 is like being caught pulling the knife out of a victim's body--you're screwed. You don't pre-pay a good lawyer to get you put of that hopeless situation. You just hope to avoid it. Revlry or Smash to Smithereens Chalice on 1. Hope to draw good, hope they start out slow.

But understanding that certain matchups will probably be a loss--and tuning the deck to win where you can--is part of being a better player/doing better at tournaments.

You can still beat Eldrazi Tron. Side in your cards that are good against it, give it your best game. Play to your outs, be proud when you do. But don't water down the decj with less efficient spells because they get around chalice and or they have cycling.

RE Shrine:

If you're cracking it turn 5, how much damage are you dealing? 3 upkeep triggers, 3-4 spells. 5 mana for 6-7 damage? Seems bad. Burn is largely about mana edficiency. 7 may seem impressive on paper, but for 5 mana, it is not.

Eidolon shreds certain decks. Storm and Elves are both bery popular right now, and it's bery good against both.

You said there's a risk in the 2 damage you give up--but that's EVERYTHING in this deck. We don't take risks. We have to turn our cards into 20 damage. Each 1 we lose is a significant set back. The sureness of the 2 damage from Eidolon is often the difference in winning and losing some games. You want to maximize your certainty. When shrine works and deals 7-8 it feels cool, and it validates to you that it is the better option.

The times it gets blown up, burn can't afford that. I want Safe cards. Shrine isn't that.

Hi friend.

Merfolk used to be a really tough matchup. I actually think the deck has gotten a bit clunkier than previous Versions. A lot of people are on Smuggler's copter, which is a very slow/do nothing olay in a lot of cases.

Come out of the gate as the beat down. If they play A silvergill, keep swinging. The silvergill grows later, our creatures don't. If they trade,
You're better off. If they don't, that's more damage.

The other thing that helps burn immensely is being RW instead of RWG. You're going to see Aether Vial and Spreading seas and decide to yourself that you would benefit from blowing those things up with destructive Revelry. That's reasonable logic.

The problem is, you make your mana base 3 colors. Spreading Seas hurts us that much more when our deck is 3 colors. If they soend their 2nd turn casting spreading seas, then they've gained no board position. Keep attacking yheir life total. Playing a game of "get them dead." Is a better plan for us than hoping yo catch their spreading seas or aether vial. Also, most burn lists run 1 stolping ground--if you get that in your opener, soreading seas on it will ruin you if you're boarding in green cards.

Lastly--try to save your white spells til the end. Fetch mountains when you can. Save fetching Sacred Foundry until ypu have to or you're goung for the win.

6-0 at Tuesday night Modern! I've been trying to get more play in vs the mirror, and Tuesday night it happened.

• 4x Revelry
  
• 2x Path to Exile
  
• 2x Relic of Progenitus
  
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
  
• 2x Searing Blood
  
• 2x Kor Firewalker
  
• 2x Grim Lavamancer

Round 1: Burn Mirror. Game 1, he came out of the gates with Goblin Guide, managed to searing blaze my Guide, and kept drawing gas.
Game 2: In: 2 Firewalker, 2 Path, 2 Lavamancer, 2 Searing Blood. Out: 2 Searing Blaze, 4 Boros Charm, 2 Rift Bolt. I dropped a turn 2 firewalker, and gained just enough life to keep off lethal.
Game 3: In: 2 Rift Bolt, 2 Boros Charm, Out: 4 Eidolon. Nothing to fancy, I killed a few of his guys, he killed a few of mine. Ultimately, he drew a few more lands than I did.

Round 2: Burn Mirror. Game 1: Swift spear into Eidolon gave me a nice start. We both got to 3 lands, and I had him at 6. I Cast a Lava spike to drop him to 3, and passed with his 3 lands up. He cast Helix at end of turn and I cast helix in response.
Game 2: Same sideboard plan as game 3 above. He deflecting Palms a Boros charm which made me panic, but runs out of gas.

Round 3: GDS
Game 1: Between he and I, his life total gets down to 10. I go end of turn Skullcrack, lightning Bolt, untap with a lava spike in hand and need any 1-2 mana burn spell--got another skullcrack.
Game 2: In: 2 Path, 2 Relic. Guide into Eidolon got me going nicely. He kills the Eidolon, but I play a 2nd. I drive him down to 2 and Stubborn Denial is effectively turned off. 1 more for the good guys!

Round 4: Elves.
Game 1. Bolted his Mystic, T2, T3 Eidolon--keep him off his combo plays. He still hits collected company to put me into a mess.
Game 2: In: 2 Lavamancer, 2 Searing Blood, 1 Grafdiggers cage, Out: 4 Boros Charm, 1 Lavaspike. Searing Blaze on his Mystic on my 2nd turn, Eidolon on the 3rd turn--he had a very slow and awkward draw and It just a lot of EOT burn spells.
Game 3: In: 4 Boros Charm, out: 4 Eidolon
Fast starts on both sides, but he wasn't getting any of the payoff cards. He's at 6, I had a skullcrack and a land that I had just drawn. I needed that land or my next draw to be any burn card. I cast the skullcrack EoT, untap and draw...STOMPING GROUND. I thought about scooping, but figured I'd give him a chance to mess it up.

He has A llanoward Elf, 4 lands, Ezuri, an Elvish Visionary, and nettle Sentinel. I have a Swift Spear. He's at 3, I guess you could argue he's wanting to collected company into a Finks in response, But I'm not sure what he's thinking I'm waiting for. He casts collected company--1 mana source available. He hits an Archdruid and something else small.

Unless I kill something, I can only block 1 and I'm dead. He taps the Llanowar Elf to play another mystic. Thinks long and hard about it attacking, says Deflecting Palm out loud--passes. Last chance, I draw a Boros charm.

He punted. Asked if I had it, I felt bad to tell him no.

Top 4: Mono white pan-harmonicon--budget deck that this kid plays that is actually super effective. The previous builds had maindeck lone missionary, main deck Finks--he told me after the fact he took out Lone Missionary's because burn hadn't been as prominent. There were 3 burn decks tonight haha. We had discussed splitting top 4, but another guy wanted to play. I had made it clear I wanted points during the splitting the top 4, and my top 4 opponent offered the concession.

Finals: Burn player from round 1.
Game 1: I start out with a 1 lander, a Guide, a Bolt, a Lava Spike, an Eidolon, a Searing Blaze and a Skullcrack, on the play. All pretty good cards in the matchup, things to do the first 3 turns if I don't hit lands--and the hope that he plays his own goblin guide to help me find 'em. I didn't draw a land for several turns. I bolted his Goblin Guide to keep myself ahead in the race. He let my Goblin guide get in for 6 or 8 damage before dealing with it. He cast an Eidolon, but was a bit behind. He manages to do enough to get himself down to 2 life, and me at 8. I top deck a land and kill him.

Game 2: Same Sideboard plan as game 3 from round 1. He mulligans to 6. He plays a turn 2 Firewalker, I attack with my Goblin Guide with a skullcrack in hand--he takes the damage. I dropped some swift spears, multiple bolts--I probably dealt 23-24 damage--he just gained too much life.

Game 3: He kept a 1 lander and never saw a 2nd. #Magic.

Thoughts:
I've been back and forth on Eidolon on the play. I think he's fine as long as you make a good effort to get ahead.
I played a total of 8 games vs Burn today--Firewalker won 2 of those games. I can justify keeping it, but I also don't think it's necessary, and it's narrow.
Searing Blood is fine, Lavamancer is fine, this is close to what I'll be running going forward.

I recently tested with Shattering spree for a few days--overall I don't like it. Affinity has enough man-lands and arcbound Ravager that it's not the board wipe we want vs them. Eldrazi Tron--Getting rid of a Chalice is nice, but if they've gotten a Chalice in 1 and 2, we're probably already taking a beating from their creatures, and top decking it isn't what we need.

I definitely don't like the existence of a "you can't lose the game" effect on an emblem that can't be directly interacted with, especially given their change to the Planeswalker rule such that card name is what matters rather than Planeswalker type. We're loaded with direct damage that can deal with it, but you possibly just lose the game doing that anyway.

It's one is their worst designs of the last few years, in my opinion. That emblem ability should be a -4, not a 0.

Agreed. I would max out on Searing effects before I ever considered a sweeper.

Quote from TylerStegman »

is there any importance to having a sweeper?

I don't think so. I subscribe to the idea that you're probably too far behind to recover with Fallout or Anger. You're probably better off with more Searing effects.

Modern is wide open and no deck is more than 6-7% of the meta (Burn is something like 4%), so Kor Firewalker doesn't do a lot of work in a wide open meta because it's so narrow. I'd cut it for another Palm or Helix. I think 6 Searing effects is sufficient in general, and might be a little bit on the heavy side even but I'd play 6 given your small creature deck expectations. Outside of that, the rest of the deck looks reasonable. Good luck tomorrow (err today, since I posted so late).

I share this sentiment on Forsake the Worldly, By Force, and Shattering Spree.

Forsake the Worldly having cycling really just makes it better than "2W, Instant: Exile target artifact or enchantment." I don't think it makes it better than DRev. It blows up Chalice on 2, but it costs you 3 and they're still going to play a Reality Smasher afterwards or strip it from your hand with Thought-Knot Seer. Either way, you're in trouble. It has the possibility to keep you from losing to Chalice, but you've probably still lost to something else. It's just not worth it to me to play a sub-optimal card to change how I lose a bad matchup.

I'd just rather use my sideboard slots in ways that benefit me in general rather than things that barely improve awful matchups. You're really not going to beat ETron unless you can race them, and a 3cmc card to blow up Chalice isn't really racing. Chalice shuts off your engine, but blowing up Chalice by jumping through hoops is like starting a drag race while the other car is halfway down the track. Like, cool, your car's running now... but you still aren't winning.

In a sense, it's about not overthinking your sideboard cards and dwelling on ways to deal with a single issue but not considering how that solution affects your sideboard as a whole. If you play Forsake, you're now playing a really bad artifact hate card against Affinity. Instead of killing Vault Skirge, you had to let it hit you with a Plating attached because you haven't hit your 3rd land yet. Spree is ok in that situation, but I still prefer DRev.

Quote from Xplore1 »

Quote from j192 »

Claim/fame isn't a burn card. It makes our overall strategy worse.
Are there times it works and has power? Sure.
Are there times we draw it and needed any burn spell instead and cry? Yup.

Devil is bad. Just because you found a reanimate card, it's still bad.

Yes nobody have the different opinion must play same deck all time. any who have the new idea any who want 2 do something different shame on u. each burn have 2 be the same blah blah blah. watch video the man have lot of fun. he win 13 lose 3. good 4 any who want have fun

You must be a little confused as to where you are. This isn't the "lets figure out what the most fun way to play a burn deck is" thread. This tier 1 competitive discussion thread is several years old and reflects the theorycrafting/work of thousands of burn players attempting to make Burn the best deck it can be.

Claim / Fame does not belong in Burn. Vexing Devil only belongs if you are running a budget version and don't intend to take it to tournaments or anything. Imagine it's turn 4, you're in topdeck mode and your opponent is at 3 life. This is a scenario any burn player is quite used to finding themselves in. Topdeck mode is part of what makes burn great: When it comes down to it we basically run 3 or so spells and then dozens of versions of those spells. When we're in topdeck mode we want to draw that lightning bolt that closes the game out, not a claim/fame to reanimate a guide/swiftspear into their 3 drop and 4 drop blockers, or a vexing devil that they can fatal push.

at the last scg modern, a burn decklist in the top 32 had two heaths
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=104451

so it's definitively possible to have good results with it

Wondered if there was anything new in the burn thread. After reading two pages of arguing over Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape I can see it's business as usual. ;P

Quote from j192 »

Quote from elconquistador1985 »

I just ran into someone playing Tezzeret Control deck with AV and Thopter/Sword. Take it with a grain of salt because the list likely isn't refined, the other player likely isn't used to playing the deck, and it was only one match, but I steamrolled it. It's not easy for them to natural the combo, so they're going to have to wait a while to draw the cards or spend 5 mana on Tezz and tutor it. Just ignore the sword and blow up the Foundry. Outside of the combo, it's a typical Ux control deck, so bottleneck their counters and pummel them.

I often screw up vs counterspell decks, what do you mean when you say bottleneck their counters?

Say you've got 3-4 lands and very few cards, and they're holding some cards and several lands up. You play draw go for a little bit, drawing into more gas. Then, at the end of their turn, you cast as much as you can, let them counter it, and then cast more on your turn when you untap. Their counters are generally more expensive than your burn is, so you've bottlenecked them by forcing them to dump counters until they can't pay for them anymore. Maybe they have 4 counters in hand but only have mana to cast 2 of them, so you get 2 spells through for damage. Generally, one of these decks is going to have to activate Celestial Colonnade eventually, and you will want to cast spells when they do that. The Sullivan article linked in a previous comment (and also on post 1 of this thread) is wonderful.

If you instead cast burn as you draw it, you're wasting spells because they can easily counter 1 spell per turn.