Agreed, guide and swiftspear often do 6-8 damage for me. I've been running a UR build lately with a full set of volleys and splash green for relelry in the side, its nice.
Yeah, certainly after sideboard it gets better; pod doesn't have all that much against burn in the side, but burn has more searing blazes, searing blood, revelry/smash, etc.
Last night I tried out R/W with one copy of stomping ground for 4 revelries in the board. I really liked it for the following reason. One of the problems I had with 3-4 color burn was that on turn one I would have two fetches in hand, with either a cruise or boros charm/helix. I often felt the need to fetch out an untapped land taking three to play a burn spell or creature, just in case I drew the a card in the third color. This meant I was dealing 6 damage to myself on the first couple of turns, which was not good in the aggresive meta that I play in. With only two colors, this is not an issue. I fetch a mountain on turn one, and am able to wait a couple turns to see what I draw before having to fetch for the sacred foundry.
I am growing to like helix more because against aggressive decks I can just bring the sacred foundry in tapped, and wait a turn to helix, turning it into a two for one. It's not like I need to play it turn 2; often I have another one mana burn spell to toss out.
I'm very confused by those saying Pod is a bye though. My other deck is Pod, and I find burn to be favorable for me; turn 2 kitchen finks happens regularly and is almost unbeatable. I'm thinking those who think Pod is easy are referring to versions that play less lifegain, but so many creatures in the recent Pod lists gain life.
Rain of gore obviously kills Pod though.
I own all the cards and have played both versions to great success... I think a lot of the disagreement may be coming from our different metas. My meta has almost no leylines but a lot of other aggressive decks. I find the mono red to be more consistent (albeit in some situations less powerful)
Your life total matters in about 45% of the meta... And extra colors don't necessarily fix the rest. And Torpor Orb helps against 15% of the field, all of which are close match-ups. Delver's a bye, so you don't need SB cards dedicated to them. I guess fallout's also okay against pod's dork dork dude draws, but meh.
I agree with all you've been saying and these have been my thoughts as well. Helix + shocks literally essentially makes it a searing spear; boros charm is great but only marginally better than flames of the blood hand. Not drawing a fetch has happened to me several times and I have been unable to play cards like bump. Bump is only marginally better than shard volley. And like you, I am not always sure whether to blindly bring in leyline killers.
Exactly... 90% of the time you pay three life for helix and it becomes essentially a searing spear. Most of what you get from the splash is an answer for leyline; for all other cards there are nearly as good side board options in mono red. I'm thinking of trying mono red with fetches main and a stomping ground plus revelries in the side. Mono red is just so good against other burn decks and delver.
You can also play 4 Skullcracks and 4 Flames of the Bloodhand, which is a total of 8 anti-life gain cards main board. Added with Leyline of Punishment in the side, the oppponent would never be given the opportunity to gain life.
Destructive Revelry is great, but it defeats the purpose of saving yourself the extra damage from shocklands. Fetchlands are always useful. I would run as many as 12 in a mono red build to filter out land draws.
Blood Moon is such a relevant card in nearly every meta game. That is the only reason I would run mono red.
Why does it defeat the purpose? you run a single shock in the side or main.
12 fetches seems like a lot; statistically if you draw 3 fetches it reduces the chance that your next draw is a land by roughly 1/10th. It's not trivial but not game breaking either.
It defeats the purpose because Stomping Ground is a shock land.
If you are so convinced mono red is superior, go ahead and play mono red. That is your choice and personal preference as a player (as mine drives me to make a Mardu build.)
Despite this, facts will only show that a white splash, or splash of any kind beyond red, is more likely to win a tournament. There are very few, if any, mono red builds I have seen top 8 compared to splashed colors.
Edit: Obviously the shock lands don't make a huge impact with Lightning Helix in the mix. Here is a RDW list that placed first http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/106406
From what you can see, he/she sides Kor Firewalker. This card would require, at minimum, 4 damage with two sacred foundries to play. Yet, despite this, the deck was able to drive itself up to 1st place. I don't know why people fight pure speculative theory with empirical evidence. White is a superior color and the shocklands don't seem to be posing any problem.
Exactly... 90% of the time you pay three life for helix and it becomes essentially a searing spear. Most of what you get from the splash is an answer for leyline; for all other cards there are nearly as good side board options in mono red. I'm thinking of trying mono red with fetches main and a stomping ground plus revelries in the side. Mono red is just so good against other burn decks and delver.
You can also play 4 Skullcracks and 4 Flames of the Bloodhand, which is a total of 8 anti-life gain cards main board. Added with Leyline of Punishment in the side, the oppponent would never be given the opportunity to gain life.
Destructive Revelry is great, but it defeats the purpose of saving yourself the extra damage from shocklands. Fetchlands are always useful. I would run as many as 12 in a mono red build to filter out land draws.
Blood Moon is such a relevant card in nearly every meta game. That is the only reason I would run mono red.
Why does it defeat the purpose? you run a single shock in the side or main.
12 fetches seems like a lot; statistically if you draw 3 fetches it reduces the chance that your next draw is a land by roughly 1/10th. It's not trivial but not game breaking either.
It defeats the purpose because Stomping Ground is a shock land.
If you are so convinced mono red is superior, go ahead and play mono red. That is your choice and personal preference as a player (as mine drives me to make a Mardu build.)
Despite this, facts will only show that a white splash, or splash of any kind beyond red, is more likely to win a tournament. There are very few, if any, mono red builds I have seen top 8 compared to splashed colors.
Edit: Obviously the shock lands don't make a huge impact with Lightning Helix in the mix. Here is a RDW list that placed first http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/106406
From what you can see, he/she sides Kor Firewalker. This card would require, at minimum, 4 damage with two sacred foundries to play. Yet, despite this, the deck was able to drive itself up to 1st place. I don't know why people fight pure speculative theory with empirical evidence. White is a superior color and the shocklands don't seem to be posing any problem.
You may be right, but I wouldn't use tournament results as your sole judge of deck quality; the problem is that the empirical evidence is flawed. If 80% of the burn players at the tournament are showing up with jeskai/mardu, and 20% show up with mono red, pure chance imposes that the jeskai/mardu will most likely end up in the top 8. To evaluate tournaments statistically you need to know what people showed up with. However, I do agree it's likely leyline that is making the difference in this case rather than number of players on either side.
Exactly... 90% of the time you pay three life for helix and it becomes essentially a searing spear. Most of what you get from the splash is an answer for leyline; for all other cards there are nearly as good side board options in mono red. I'm thinking of trying mono red with fetches main and a stomping ground plus revelries in the side. Mono red is just so good against other burn decks and delver.
You can also play 4 Skullcracks and 4 Flames of the Bloodhand, which is a total of 8 anti-life gain cards main board. Added with Leyline of Punishment in the side, the oppponent would never be given the opportunity to gain life.
Destructive Revelry is great, but it defeats the purpose of saving yourself the extra damage from shocklands. Fetchlands are always useful. I would run as many as 12 in a mono red build to filter out land draws.
Blood Moon is such a relevant card in nearly every meta game. That is the only reason I would run mono red.
Why does it defeat the purpose? you run a single shock in the side or main.
12 fetches seems like a lot; statistically if you draw 3 fetches it reduces the chance that your next draw is a land by roughly 1/10th. It's not trivial but not game breaking either.
Exactly... 90% of the time you pay three life for helix and it becomes essentially a searing spear. Most of what you get from the splash is an answer for leyline; for all other cards there are nearly as good side board options in mono red. I'm thinking of trying mono red with fetches main and a stomping ground plus revelries in the side. Mono red is just so good against other burn decks and delver.
I am considering dropping Grim for a 3-3-3 split on the Cracks, Blazes, and Helixes. For now, however, with an aggro-heavy meta, I'm sticking with 3 Helixes. 2 Skullcracks seems fine for the main deck right now. Delver and Affinity are sort of tearing up the meta, it seems.
I think Engineering Explosives is the best sideboard option against a lot of decks. In G/W aura, 80% of the enchantments are 1 mana, and it combats Spellskite/Dragon's Claw combos. The only cards I may want are a Volcanic Fallout or Leyline of Punishment.
This list looks cool, if treasure cruise wasn't working out so nice for me I'd try it out. IF (when) it gets banned I'm going to something like that.
What is with the jeskai decks that aren't playing helix? Is helix worth it?
Also, in the decks playing black, how is rain of gore against UWR? I really like the black splash because rain of gore seems like such a blow out against all the sided in life gain. Like when that thing drops, it immediately destroys kitchen finks, lightning helices, the random soul sisters deck, etc.
I'm talking myself into going for grixis tonight... so much Pod in my meta.
I think the creatureless burn route or just eidolon route is super interesting but haven't tested it. In theory, I like it because it makes all your opponents creature removal spells dead if they don't know what you are playing, and they won't side them out (they'll assume you have creatures). Furthermore, you generally don't care about their board unless it gains them life as burn, in fact to some extent you essentially brick their creatures too because usually a lot of their creatures simply function as blockers in the matchup.
The big advantages to creatures I see though are:
1)They eat your opponents mana to kill
2)They can potentially 4+ damage
3)They can serve as blockers in longer games
4)They eat kill spells that might otherwise have hit an eidolon
Yeah that advice seems good. I still don't feel like molten rain is enough though; I've hit two of them and still lost (though I think I got hit by two helices that game and didn't have any skullcracks). Also, if they play helices right you can't even get to skullcrack them. They shouldn't have to play one until either you are tapped out or they are about to die.
I like shrine of the burning rage but haven't had a chance to get it on the board against UWR yet. I'm thinking two shrines and two blood moons should be pretty strong against them though.
Anyone else have trouble with UWR? The helices are just miserable to face and I find that when they know how to play around skullcrack (save helices) you pretty much just lose. Maybe its just the list I am playing against... he even has a dispel in the side.
I'm thinking about buying some blood moons for my sideboard.
I am growing to like helix more because against aggressive decks I can just bring the sacred foundry in tapped, and wait a turn to helix, turning it into a two for one. It's not like I need to play it turn 2; often I have another one mana burn spell to toss out.
I'm very confused by those saying Pod is a bye though. My other deck is Pod, and I find burn to be favorable for me; turn 2 kitchen finks happens regularly and is almost unbeatable. I'm thinking those who think Pod is easy are referring to versions that play less lifegain, but so many creatures in the recent Pod lists gain life.
Rain of gore obviously kills Pod though.
I agree with all you've been saying and these have been my thoughts as well. Helix + shocks literally essentially makes it a searing spear; boros charm is great but only marginally better than flames of the blood hand. Not drawing a fetch has happened to me several times and I have been unable to play cards like bump. Bump is only marginally better than shard volley. And like you, I am not always sure whether to blindly bring in leyline killers.
You may be right, but I wouldn't use tournament results as your sole judge of deck quality; the problem is that the empirical evidence is flawed. If 80% of the burn players at the tournament are showing up with jeskai/mardu, and 20% show up with mono red, pure chance imposes that the jeskai/mardu will most likely end up in the top 8. To evaluate tournaments statistically you need to know what people showed up with. However, I do agree it's likely leyline that is making the difference in this case rather than number of players on either side.
Why does it defeat the purpose? you run a single shock in the side or main.
12 fetches seems like a lot; statistically if you draw 3 fetches it reduces the chance that your next draw is a land by roughly 1/10th. It's not trivial but not game breaking either.
It's too bad mono red has no answers for Leyline, other wise I think it is good right now given how hard it wrecks delver (and 4 color burn).
This list looks cool, if treasure cruise wasn't working out so nice for me I'd try it out. IF (when) it gets banned I'm going to something like that.
Also, in the decks playing black, how is rain of gore against UWR? I really like the black splash because rain of gore seems like such a blow out against all the sided in life gain. Like when that thing drops, it immediately destroys kitchen finks, lightning helices, the random soul sisters deck, etc.
I'm talking myself into going for grixis tonight... so much Pod in my meta.
The big advantages to creatures I see though are:
1)They eat your opponents mana to kill
2)They can potentially 4+ damage
3)They can serve as blockers in longer games
4)They eat kill spells that might otherwise have hit an eidolon
I like shrine of the burning rage but haven't had a chance to get it on the board against UWR yet. I'm thinking two shrines and two blood moons should be pretty strong against them though.
I'm thinking about buying some blood moons for my sideboard.