I don't know. You can PM me the first name, street number and country of the one you were supposed to send it to (that shouldn't be able to identify someone, but should make it extremely unlikely that I share it with someone here) if you want me to be able to answer (it's supposed to be secretive, but I guess it might help if something got lost in the mail).
Yes, it does needs support. But I don't want it to go overboard with wheels because wheeling with this can turn into 12 evasive power.
Take 2:
Shadowstormer Vizier UB
Creature - Human Cleric
Flying
Whenever a player discards one or more cards, put a +1/+1 counter on Shadowstormer Vizier.
2/1
This way it doesn't go overboard with wheels, but discard/cycling doesn't just go away at end of turn. It should be able to consistently be 4+ power in the right deck at least. Maybe it's too narrow.
I may keep 4 landers if they have a card that radically alters the matchup, like Eidolon vs Storm, Fallout vs Elves etc
But keeping a 4 lander on the blind? Yeah, not gonna happen. I've been screwed every time it happens, learned from my mistakes and moved on.
I did keep 5 lands lavamancer shard volley against some goblin tribal deck G2 where I knew lavamancer was insane. I proceeded to win that game, but didn't start damaging my opponent until turn 5 or so, haha.
What is tougher for burn to deal with discard or life gain? And is leyline of punish worth using?
Depends on how much life gain. We can fight through 6 or so points especially if the enemy have no clock, but getting turn 2'd Martyr of sands or Vault Skirge gets to connect 1-2 times with plating (ALWAYS BOLT ZE SKIRGE) or if the opponent resolves Timely followed by BA, we're in for a bad time. Discard will almost always be rough, lifegain is easier to deal with and if you know what to expect usually not that hard to play around, but there's no effective way of dealing with double inquisiton followed by a threat.
And only if you expect tons of soul sisters, but at that point it's honestly better to play something else.
Melira-less Melira company seems here to stay. The deck has massively surged online at least, but thats partially because the combo is more doable online.
Exquisite Firecraft is good. It needs a specific meta to be good, but it is good there. I wouldn't run it mainboard though, it's not that good. There's too many matchups where it's a 3 mana boros charm with only one mode at sorcery speed. It's a meta sideboard card, nothing more, nothing less.
Are the Boros list gaining terrain to the Naya ones? I've recently seen quite Naya list that don't run Atarka's command or relegate it to the side. Sure it's meta dependent, but for me it's hard to find enough reasons to go Naya:
About Lightning Helix vs Atarka's command, I think that Helix deserves more credit. It's true that gaining lifes or removing creatures is not what you are looking for when playing RDW, but it's nice to have those options and it can be quite relevant.
About Destructive Revelry vs Wear/Tear, I can concede that Revelry or Smash to Smithereens fit better in a burn deck, but you are forcing your mana base basically for just one card that can sometimes be difficult to cast for the same reason. Don't get me wrong, I think that Destructive Revelry is great, and I hate to side things that don't do damage, I just miss that it isn't white hehe. BTW, I'm currently running 1 Forsake the Worldly to complement my Wear/Tear and Stony Silence and it's working fine for me. As I said, I think that it's problematic to side too many PTE, Wear/Tear or any card that don't do damage. Forsake the Worldly don't do damage either, but you can cycle if needed and it's cool to also have a cost 3 vs COTV.
It's a meta call. Boros is better in matchups where your life total matters, Naya is better in matchups where it doesn't. Boros with Rev in the side is a compromise because Rev is that good and the only matchups where your life total matters and you want Rev is probably affinity and 8whack, so running Boros with Rev allows you to fight through hate as effectively as Naya while rarely have to take unnecessary damage from lands (only when you have SG in hand, while in Naya you want to bolt yourself for green so you wont draw Atarka's and arent' able to cast it).
Atarka's is still a great card, and worth playing Naya for, but all the pushes running around in the meta made it less impactful. With no Atarka's, you want the playset skullcracks main instead to deal with maindeck lifegain so you're straight up downgrading a card in order to take less damage from lands, so again, it's a meta call whether it's worth it or not.
I think the only time I'd run Revless Boros would be in a very magical paper meta where things like Leyline and Phyrexian Unlife didn't exist. About the only upside I see with Forsake the Worldly is that it gets through chalice on 2, but if Chalice is a that much of an issue, run Shattering Spree, it's a lot better elsewhere as well. I guess cycling isn't horrible but I honestly don't think chalice is that much of an issue to warrant running 3 mana hate for it. We can definitely fight our way through chalice on 1 OR 2, but both almost locks us out of the game but that's enough of a corner case scenario for me not to run singletons in the sideboard that you're hoping to draw while they're beating you down with a Reality Smasher or something.
T2 Kitchen Finks just takes the wind out of my sails
ALWAYS BOLT ZE BIRD
But yeah, the matchups where you cant and they have t2 finks are going to be awful.
Id say Bant Eldrazi is pretty good for us. We're faster than them and they dont have that much disruption. Sure they can do silly things like turn 2 thought knot from double temple but most games vs bant eldrazi i tend to finish them off with burn facing lethal on board.
Eldrazitron feels so inconsistent. If they have the right cards they can hate us out of the game but they wont always have that and unless they have chalice on 2 or a collar on their fat balista im pretty confident about my odds and Id say the matchup is about even.
Beatable, but very difficult. Doesn't help that they run main board Unlife which is one of the best Burn hate cards. Leylines usually come in post board as well.
Beatable, but very difficult. Doesn't help that they run main board Unlife which is one of the best Burn hate cards. Leylines usually come in post board as well.
4 leyline 3 unlife and we only have 4 revelries. If same time leyline and unlife on board i would remove unlife first. Early game creatures and attarka's command and boros charm as creature damage increase might be the game plan here i think.
Yeah no question about it I'd always remove unlife first since that's not only an effective 10 lifepoint swing our way but also part of their wincon. About the only times I'd remove leyline over unlife is if I know it doesn't affect the chances of getting combo-ed out on next turn and I have another Revelry in hand.
What are generally the tough matches for Burn? First game and then after the sides rotate in. I notice an significant difference there in the limited matches I experienced.
Ad Nauseam is horrible, especially preboard. Even if we keep a T3 hand, if we're on the draw we can still get blown out to T3 unlife on the play that we can't interact with. It becomes easier postboard with revelry since that can disrupt them A LOT unless they have like, several unlifes in hand, but it's still one of our worst matchups. I almost never win game one vs Ad Naus, but I've won both game 2+3 a couple times so it's not like it's unwinnable.
Martyr of Sands decks are awful as well. Soul Sisters w/o Martyr is beatable if you expect it, I'd go as far as saying the RW version is favorable, but Martyr sisters or sisters that you're unprepared for is gross. It's not unwinnable but they have some unbeatable hands we just can't fight through. I've never beat the deck online, but I've only run into it twice and I'm running a different board than paper (I've never lost in paper to it, but I've mostly played the RW version).
Merfolk is bad. It's not on the level on the other two, but its still pretty tough. They usually can disrupt us enough and then just overpower us. I know some people disagree with me on this, and we certainly beat their slow hands, but if they draw well disruption they can either blow us out of the game with spreading seas or disrupt us enough to overpower us with Master of Waves/Lords.
Bogles can just destroy us with lifegain enchantments preboard but it gets easier postboard.
UW resto control feels kinda bad. They have a lot of lifegain and a bunch of disruption and Resto/Finks beats are a decent clock. It's absolutely winnable, but slightly unfavorable.
Some GWx decks feel kinda bad as well. Melira Company forces us to interact with their creatures which slows down our clock as well as packing a bunch of lifegain. The matchup isn't awful by any means, but I wouldn't call it favorable.
Death and Taxes have hands that blow us out of the game, but I'm not sure I'd call it unfavorable regardless no matter how awful some hands are. They won't draw those every game, and if they don't I might even say we're favored but I'm unsure.
Any deck that packs a ton of hate cards out of the board will be bad, but that will vary based on what the meta looks like and how much the player hates burn.
Honestly, I don't think we have that many matchups that are worse than 50/50, and even the ones that are are winnable if you are prepared for them. Martyrofsands.dec and Ad Naus are the only ones that feel really bad, and even they are winnable, especially Ad Naus. And for each horrible matchup we have, we have some that is that much in our favor. Baral Storm, GW Tron, Elves all feel like matchups where I only lose if I draw awfully, or if I draw mediocre and they nut draw us out of the game. But we're as likely to do that in our bad matchups.
So, background:
I've never played burn in modern, but I played UWr control from format inception to 2014 and the wafo tapa esper draw go deck from 2014 to present, so I'm intimately familiar with the format as a whole and i've played legacy burn for a tad more than a decade. I played the following today to a 2-2 record and I think part of that is due to misbuilding the deck, so I'm looking for advice there.
My rounds:
Grixis delver, 1-2. Won first game. Boarded in firecraft, sudden shock, molten rain, cut helixes, skullcrack, lavamancer and a rift bolt. Drew 7 lands g2 and six land g3.
Abzan midrange w/heirarchs, 1-2
Won g1, boarded in skullcrack and firecraft on the draw, skullcrack and molten rain on the play, cut lavamancer and rift bolts to match.
Affinity, 2-0
Boarded in shrapnel blast, revelry, skullcrack, sudden shock, palm. Cut eidolon and rift bolts.
I don't know what the common knowledge is in modern, so I might be missing something, but my general sideboarding plans felt pretty strong except against the BGx player. Molten rain felt unnecessary, so I'm not sure what to cut those for. I don't know if there's a need to sideboard against the graveyard decks like dredge or gifts, because i'm not familiar enough with how burn matches up there.
I think that initially I want to go -1 mountain -1 helix +2 skullcrack main, and -2 skullcrack -4 molten rain +1 helix in the board, but idk about the other five slots. My initial thought is that some number of flames of the blood hand and searing blood should together shore up the bgx matchup by letting me double up to kill goyf or tasigur/scooze while still pushing damage through and answering the lifegain cards like rhino and blessed alliance.
Yeah Molten Rain is bad, like really bad, and if you're not running Naya I think you want the full playset of Skullcracks main. There's just so much lifegain around in modern you need to fight.
Secondly, you NEED 3-4 paths in the board. Stuff like Tasigur, Wurmcoil, Death's Shadow, Goyf, Master of Waves, Firewalker, Platinum Emperion and other cards just need to be dealt with. It's a necessary evil. We're not killing Goyf with blaze/blood usually, and these cards help us to get to the topdecking stage against some decks as they put a lot of resources into a single creature, or they win the game if not dealt with and Path is the only card that deals with them efficiently. Death Shadow is running rampant in modern right now, and Path helps the matchup a ton. I'd say the matchup is very favorable towards us unless they draw a ton of discard, and path is a big reason why. Path does radically alter some matchups as it both allow us to fight through hate as well as hate on specific decks (Death's Shadow), perhaps not as much as Ensnaring Bridge/Mindbreak Trap does. I think running 4 atm is correct, at least online, but it takes a very specific meta to warrant less than 3 (my paper meta used to, but not anymore).
I also could never go without the full 4 Revelry. It deals with Chalice, Leyline, Spreading Seas, Vial, Blood Moon, Dragon's Claw, Wurmcoil (fogs the damage a turn, which can often be enough), Basilisk Collar, Affinity, Bogles lifegain enchantments, Emperion, as well as random stuff like Spear of the Godhead. It allows us to fight through some of the most common hate cards towards us, and often we just need to deal with a single hate card, and in a lot of these matchups I NEED to see the revelry post-board every game or most likely lose. Smash to Smithereens just doesn't have enough targets to warrant the bonus 1 damage and easier mana cost.
Grave hate is another thing I'd recommend. Relic of Progenitus is my choice as it not only is hard to deal with for the opponents, but you also can cash in for another card when you need the last burn spell to finish the game. In a GY heavy meta I'd go with Rest in Peace over it, but there's not enough Dredge around atm, and Dredge is a favorable matchup anyways, especially with a hate card.
And yes, you need double stomping grounds. Having your singleton get destroyed without the option of fetching another would be awful, and Revelry is that important in some matchups.
I don't like sudden shock with how little infect there's in the meta atm, and Exquisite Firecraft is decent but a meta call. I run it in paper because my meta is super tilted towards Ux counterspell decks, but I wouldn't run it online.
I've gotten blown out from palm maindeck in the mirror once. But I wouldn't run it myself main in an open meta, it's dead too often. On the flipside, running a couple sideboard cards maindeck can be good if you know your meta well. Especially if people don't see it coming.
Local FNM meta's can be vastly different from the GP/MTGO meta which leads to weird mainboarding. Lingering Souls was good enough for in my meta that it warranted a couple copies mainboard, but I would never mainboard it at a GP. What's good at your local FNM isn't necessarily good in a broad meta.
I don't know. You can PM me the first name, street number and country of the one you were supposed to send it to (that shouldn't be able to identify someone, but should make it extremely unlikely that I share it with someone here) if you want me to be able to answer (it's supposed to be secretive, but I guess it might help if something got lost in the mail).
Take 2:
Shadowstormer Vizier UB
Creature - Human Cleric
Flying
Whenever a player discards one or more cards, put a +1/+1 counter on Shadowstormer Vizier.
2/1
This way it doesn't go overboard with wheels, but discard/cycling doesn't just go away at end of turn. It should be able to consistently be 4+ power in the right deck at least. Maybe it's too narrow.
Shadowstormer Vizier UB
Creature - Human Cleric
Flying
Whenever a player discards a card, Shadowstormer Vizier gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
2/1
But keeping a 4 lander on the blind? Yeah, not gonna happen. I've been screwed every time it happens, learned from my mistakes and moved on.
I did keep 5 lands lavamancer shard volley against some goblin tribal deck G2 where I knew lavamancer was insane. I proceeded to win that game, but didn't start damaging my opponent until turn 5 or so, haha.
Depends on how much life gain. We can fight through 6 or so points especially if the enemy have no clock, but getting turn 2'd Martyr of sands or Vault Skirge gets to connect 1-2 times with plating (ALWAYS BOLT ZE SKIRGE) or if the opponent resolves Timely followed by BA, we're in for a bad time. Discard will almost always be rough, lifegain is easier to deal with and if you know what to expect usually not that hard to play around, but there's no effective way of dealing with double inquisiton followed by a threat.
And only if you expect tons of soul sisters, but at that point it's honestly better to play something else.
Exquisite Firecraft is good. It needs a specific meta to be good, but it is good there. I wouldn't run it mainboard though, it's not that good. There's too many matchups where it's a 3 mana boros charm with only one mode at sorcery speed. It's a meta sideboard card, nothing more, nothing less.
It's a meta call. Boros is better in matchups where your life total matters, Naya is better in matchups where it doesn't. Boros with Rev in the side is a compromise because Rev is that good and the only matchups where your life total matters and you want Rev is probably affinity and 8whack, so running Boros with Rev allows you to fight through hate as effectively as Naya while rarely have to take unnecessary damage from lands (only when you have SG in hand, while in Naya you want to bolt yourself for green so you wont draw Atarka's and arent' able to cast it).
Atarka's is still a great card, and worth playing Naya for, but all the pushes running around in the meta made it less impactful. With no Atarka's, you want the playset skullcracks main instead to deal with maindeck lifegain so you're straight up downgrading a card in order to take less damage from lands, so again, it's a meta call whether it's worth it or not.
I think the only time I'd run Revless Boros would be in a very magical paper meta where things like Leyline and Phyrexian Unlife didn't exist. About the only upside I see with Forsake the Worldly is that it gets through chalice on 2, but if Chalice is a that much of an issue, run Shattering Spree, it's a lot better elsewhere as well. I guess cycling isn't horrible but I honestly don't think chalice is that much of an issue to warrant running 3 mana hate for it. We can definitely fight our way through chalice on 1 OR 2, but both almost locks us out of the game but that's enough of a corner case scenario for me not to run singletons in the sideboard that you're hoping to draw while they're beating you down with a Reality Smasher or something.
ALWAYS BOLT ZE BIRD
But yeah, the matchups where you cant and they have t2 finks are going to be awful.
Id say Bant Eldrazi is pretty good for us. We're faster than them and they dont have that much disruption. Sure they can do silly things like turn 2 thought knot from double temple but most games vs bant eldrazi i tend to finish them off with burn facing lethal on board.
Eldrazitron feels so inconsistent. If they have the right cards they can hate us out of the game but they wont always have that and unless they have chalice on 2 or a collar on their fat balista im pretty confident about my odds and Id say the matchup is about even.
Yeah no question about it I'd always remove unlife first since that's not only an effective 10 lifepoint swing our way but also part of their wincon. About the only times I'd remove leyline over unlife is if I know it doesn't affect the chances of getting combo-ed out on next turn and I have another Revelry in hand.
Ad Nauseam is horrible, especially preboard. Even if we keep a T3 hand, if we're on the draw we can still get blown out to T3 unlife on the play that we can't interact with. It becomes easier postboard with revelry since that can disrupt them A LOT unless they have like, several unlifes in hand, but it's still one of our worst matchups. I almost never win game one vs Ad Naus, but I've won both game 2+3 a couple times so it's not like it's unwinnable.
Martyr of Sands decks are awful as well. Soul Sisters w/o Martyr is beatable if you expect it, I'd go as far as saying the RW version is favorable, but Martyr sisters or sisters that you're unprepared for is gross. It's not unwinnable but they have some unbeatable hands we just can't fight through. I've never beat the deck online, but I've only run into it twice and I'm running a different board than paper (I've never lost in paper to it, but I've mostly played the RW version).
Merfolk is bad. It's not on the level on the other two, but its still pretty tough. They usually can disrupt us enough and then just overpower us. I know some people disagree with me on this, and we certainly beat their slow hands, but if they draw well disruption they can either blow us out of the game with spreading seas or disrupt us enough to overpower us with Master of Waves/Lords.
Bogles can just destroy us with lifegain enchantments preboard but it gets easier postboard.
UW resto control feels kinda bad. They have a lot of lifegain and a bunch of disruption and Resto/Finks beats are a decent clock. It's absolutely winnable, but slightly unfavorable.
Some GWx decks feel kinda bad as well. Melira Company forces us to interact with their creatures which slows down our clock as well as packing a bunch of lifegain. The matchup isn't awful by any means, but I wouldn't call it favorable.
Death and Taxes have hands that blow us out of the game, but I'm not sure I'd call it unfavorable regardless no matter how awful some hands are. They won't draw those every game, and if they don't I might even say we're favored but I'm unsure.
Any deck that packs a ton of hate cards out of the board will be bad, but that will vary based on what the meta looks like and how much the player hates burn.
Honestly, I don't think we have that many matchups that are worse than 50/50, and even the ones that are are winnable if you are prepared for them. Martyrofsands.dec and Ad Naus are the only ones that feel really bad, and even they are winnable, especially Ad Naus. And for each horrible matchup we have, we have some that is that much in our favor. Baral Storm, GW Tron, Elves all feel like matchups where I only lose if I draw awfully, or if I draw mediocre and they nut draw us out of the game. But we're as likely to do that in our bad matchups.
Yeah Molten Rain is bad, like really bad, and if you're not running Naya I think you want the full playset of Skullcracks main. There's just so much lifegain around in modern you need to fight.
Secondly, you NEED 3-4 paths in the board. Stuff like Tasigur, Wurmcoil, Death's Shadow, Goyf, Master of Waves, Firewalker, Platinum Emperion and other cards just need to be dealt with. It's a necessary evil. We're not killing Goyf with blaze/blood usually, and these cards help us to get to the topdecking stage against some decks as they put a lot of resources into a single creature, or they win the game if not dealt with and Path is the only card that deals with them efficiently. Death Shadow is running rampant in modern right now, and Path helps the matchup a ton. I'd say the matchup is very favorable towards us unless they draw a ton of discard, and path is a big reason why. Path does radically alter some matchups as it both allow us to fight through hate as well as hate on specific decks (Death's Shadow), perhaps not as much as Ensnaring Bridge/Mindbreak Trap does. I think running 4 atm is correct, at least online, but it takes a very specific meta to warrant less than 3 (my paper meta used to, but not anymore).
I also could never go without the full 4 Revelry. It deals with Chalice, Leyline, Spreading Seas, Vial, Blood Moon, Dragon's Claw, Wurmcoil (fogs the damage a turn, which can often be enough), Basilisk Collar, Affinity, Bogles lifegain enchantments, Emperion, as well as random stuff like Spear of the Godhead. It allows us to fight through some of the most common hate cards towards us, and often we just need to deal with a single hate card, and in a lot of these matchups I NEED to see the revelry post-board every game or most likely lose. Smash to Smithereens just doesn't have enough targets to warrant the bonus 1 damage and easier mana cost.
Grave hate is another thing I'd recommend. Relic of Progenitus is my choice as it not only is hard to deal with for the opponents, but you also can cash in for another card when you need the last burn spell to finish the game. In a GY heavy meta I'd go with Rest in Peace over it, but there's not enough Dredge around atm, and Dredge is a favorable matchup anyways, especially with a hate card.
And yes, you need double stomping grounds. Having your singleton get destroyed without the option of fetching another would be awful, and Revelry is that important in some matchups.
I don't like sudden shock with how little infect there's in the meta atm, and Exquisite Firecraft is decent but a meta call. I run it in paper because my meta is super tilted towards Ux counterspell decks, but I wouldn't run it online.