MTG Salvation

Here is the final list I ended up playing last FNM. Went 3-1 losing only to a UR deck playing crackling drake, thing in the ice, and pyromancer ascension... the guy went 4-0 :O. Won against jund, mardu, and 4c scapeshift.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/25-01-17-RSg-bw-tokens/

HoB has been very powerful always and I have not missed Lili, which is really good, but in our deck works more like a winmore card. I see your point about cast out, but I wanted to try it. The cycling feels really sexy and I never felt like anguished did much for me when I used to play it. Since I am playing a more rounded version, it may become the 3rd push it has always been. Or even a ZP in the main. I think that is the only real flex-slot I have left, the rest of the deck feels reaaally strong.

It finally felt like the deck was offering the perfect balance between disruption and pressure.

Guys, back from Stockholm. The GP was really bad in terms of results since I went 1-3 drop (might as well do some tourism). Won against KCI round 1 and then I got gotten by 8rack, elves, and modular. All of them super close matches. The deck didnt feel weak at all. But all the matches were the same: excellent job at disrupting initial turns, and couldnt deploy a menace afterwards, so they could rebuild.

The only thing I would change is the 1-of damping sphere. I am looking at a 3rd wrath effect (ZP could be a good option too) or something else like a mindcensor or similar.

I have updated a bit the sheet, to evaluate which cards have the best performance across the meta. I try to determine which cards are consistently good in the main, i.e., independently of the MU, and which are not as robust mainboard inclusions. For the SB, I try to determine which are the cards we make more use of, not based on the number we run, but on the MUs they are good against.

These results are list-specific, but you can extract your own conclusions by substituting your list in the spreadsheet.

MOST ROBUST MAINBOARD CARDS:
Lingering souls (surprise), Gideon, Intangible virtue, Start//finish.
LESS ROBUST MAINBOARD CARDS:
Fatal Push, collective brutality, Legions landing, Liliana of the veil. (Well, those are our flex spots, so I guess it makes a lot of sense)

MOST USED SB CARDS:
Wraths, Pithing needle, Extraction
LEAST USED SB CARDS:
Stony Silence, Damping sphere, Rest in Peace, Blessed Alliance

Worst cards in the main are basically our flexspots. It makes sense that they are so, because they are basically meta calls, and will depend on the MU. This means that the core of the deck has been very well established. Kind of surprised to see Start//Finish up there. I knew the card was great, but the math is unexpectedly favourable for the card.

Even if Stony Silence is the card we use the least of our SB. I still think it is correct to use 3 copies, because we need it early in the game, and when it works, it works good. Surprised to see Pithing needle so high. If I were to substitute a card, I might replace a damping sphere for another needle. Still have a couple days to think about this.

How about you guys? surprised?

I am working on a SB guide for my list. I have all the most relevant MUs sorted in columns and the strategy reflected in the table. If I am missing some relevant deck in the modern scene, tip me off please Link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D2_R_PZ5mumJMGYIpTEozUFFJ99DlhRDpWg8Z-rj0Gk/edit?usp=sharing (I hope it works)

Currently, draw/play has not been taken into account, as I dont think it really matters that much. I would appreciate commets on that point.

The last column on the right tells how many times a certain card is switched out/in (notice that cards with more copies in the deck will show higher numbers here, but might be taken out in less MUs. I should probably weigh that somehow). I can infer how relevant a certain SB card is, and which cards in my main are weaker to the current meta. I would also appreciate some opinions on that.

Finally, and actually most importantly, let me know what do you think about the strategies for each MUs. Most of them are clear, but, well, criticism is always welcome. I would LOVE TO HAVE SOME FEEDBACK on the strategies before GP Stockholm (this weekend)

Feel free to take the spreadsheet as template for your own decks, but dont expect anything too fancy.

Thanks a lot guys!

Hi guys, yesterday I took part in a PPTQ event. Short report of the rounds:

31 people, 5 rounds. In the signature you will find a link to the list.

Round 1: 2-1 against Jund
This matchup is really good. He played really well turn 2 but they struggle a lot jsut to get close to winning. Nevertheless, Jund is a very real deck, and we need to play tight to actually be on the lead.
IN: 2 Wraths
OUT: 2 Collective Brutality

Round 2: 2-1 against BW Superfriends
This deck tries to be a tokens deck, but based on PW, way more than us. They play a lot of sweepers (main and postboard), and even a Cleansing Nova that wrecked all my enchantments game 1. Still, if you wanna get grindy, it is hard to out-grind tokens.
IN: 2 Pithing Needle, 1 Wrath of God + 1 Damnation

Round 3: 1-2 against RG prison/dragons/ponza
Not sure about how to name the deck. Game 1 he caught me under the Blood Moon. I had a plains so I could do things, but then he managed to get me bad. Game 2 was simple superb. Disrupt, assemble tokens, pathpathpath, disenchant moon, attack for 12 in the air. GG. The guy was very impressed. Game 3 turned into a grind fest, which all the tournament ended up watching for fun (as it was the last match to finish). Amazing game full of ups and downs. I got to a critical point where I had Liliana of the Veil and Gideon, ally of zendikar on the table and active. protected by 3 tokens, while they had 1 creature. They topdecked a BBE into Fiery Justice dealing 4 damage to the tokens (killing them) and one to Gideon, who was at 4. Then they attacked with 2 BBE and killed both my PW and leave my board empty. Totally reversed the game there. Had they drawn a land, I would have won the match, easy. I could kill their creatures and their chandra thanks to Bitterblossom, but then I spent 5 turns attacking with my Shambling vent, and drawing lands. Only needed a token generator, but the gods of magic didnt give it to me. A pity to line 6 lands on a row after all the thing happening in the matchup, but, well, ***** happens.
IN: 2 Disenchant
OUT: 2 Legion´s Landing

Round 4: 0-2 against Hollow One
The guy told me that it was gonna be a good matchup for me. I disagreed deeply, and apparently I wasnt too far from the truth. He trampled over my poor tokens. Didnt see any SB in game 2. I made a mistake playing a tapped land when I needed it untapped, and made things worse. I am not sure I could have won by doing what I wanted to, but it would have been closer, for sure. First time playing against Hollow One though, so I took some notes:
- We need to mulligan a bit more aggresively to find GY hate. A good tokens hand is most of the times not enough, because they dont care about our
early disruption.
- Always pay attention to beginning of combat: the phoenixes are a thing.
- Control the big hitters, then their small ones, and lastly their GY (as a rule of thumb, but if you have a clear chance to take on the GY, go for
it).
I will be practicing a bit this MUs, which are unfortunately not common in my LGS.
IN: 3 Extractions, 1 Rest in Peace, 1 Wrath of God, 1 Blessed alliance (next time I will leave the alliace out for the other wrath.
OUT: 2 Liliana of the veil, 3 Thoughtseize, 1 Collective Brutality

Round 5: 2-1 against burn
I think that with the new inclusion of Legion´s Landing and the 3rd Sorin, Solemn Visitor the MU has become much better for me. Game 2 he won on the classical burn outrage against a kind of meh hand I had. The other games felt really good and I was able to gain a ton of life with 1/1 lifelinkers. He never really had a chance, especially when I Iok away his Ensnaring Bridge
IN: 2 Blessed Alliance, 2 Disenchant
OUT: 3 Bitterblossom, 1 Thoughtseize

Finally, 3-2. It could have easily been a 4-1, but variance didnt want to (it felt very bad to lose to this guy, because he was very annoying).

I am very happy with how the deck performed and the one thing I am still thinking about for GP Stockholm are the 2 slots I dedicate in SB for Blessed Alliance. Sure they grant an edge against Death´s shadow, infect, eldrazi, or bogles. The first 2 are already excellent MUs anyway, and the two latter are not so played anymore. Burn feels like we dont really need those slots so badly. I am thiking about boarding something else instead in there. Something that can maybe help us with the new explosive decks appearing in modern: Hardened scales (the 1st and 2nd positions in the swiss were for this deck).

Ideas? I am considering:
- Zealous Persecution, for thopters, GY recurrent creatures, spirits...
- Runed Halo, for valakut and similar combos
- Ghostly Prison could be awesome against all these decks.

Any tips on the SB or in general are appreciated. If you guys have any experience with the new emerging decks in modern, I would also appreciate that.

THANKS!!!

Heeeeyyy!!! nice to see such a good result with a so similar list. I truly believe is the best implementation of tokens so far. Of course, I might be biased for how cool I consider myself

Jokes apart, congrats for the final! As a brief comment, and although it turned out super fine for you, I believe that, considering the amoount of UW control decks around, pithing is a must have in the SB. If your local meta doesnt match that, then I would be okay removing it. Also Engineered explosives sees play in many different decks. I thing I will be packing a couple in my SB for Stockholm.

EDIT: ah! and Walking ballistas!

You guys are going against the last 2 years of posts in this thread. We have always been a nice and constructive community that would ALWAYS listen to opinions and help people needing some advice. What you are doing here is childish and only damages the forum and your reputation. I would kindly ask you to stop this and behave as the rest of the forum has always treated you. Thanks.

Now to the matter. I am very much in line with what emu said. This deck is much better than the tier says, mainly because of the number of players in competitive events. Last two "big" events I have been to were a PPTQ where I went 6th out of 40+ people (7-2-1 I believe), and a MKM modern event where I went 6-4 but with some punting on my side, to be honest. In september I will be taking this deck to GP Stockholm, where OBVIOUSLY I plan to win hehe. I will be making some meta analysis and SB tech in the upcoming weeks, so guys be ready to contribute.

The only thing I disagree with is Legion's Landing. I have tried it before and the card feels really powerful. We dont usually play it turn 1, because most of the people running it run 1 or 2 max. It is however, a free creature if you already have 3 creatures (which doesnt mean you are already winning) and the late game is very powerful. Agree that discard is very important, but give it a try if you havent yet. I am currently playing 2 of them. Along with 6 discard spells, 2 CB, 2 Lilianas, I dont feel I need more disruption than that.

Or you could simply go up 1 CB in the main. It is the most similar card to LoTV you can find, and it is just great. I play 2/2 CB and LoTV main, and I am superhappy with it. Also, it opens another SB slot for your wraths

there is a series of videos on youtube by ivanmtgdpt where he tries the card. I wont tell you how the league ended, but the deck plays great (although he had very good draws most of the matches). HoB seems pretty powerful in the deck, even without the addition of any other knights. A delayed token generator is great, in the way lingering souls is. Tokens dont fly and are merged in one body, but you dont have to pay flashback cost. If you are lucky enough to have an active gideon on board, then feel free to create a Knight ally for flavor but the card is strong enough alone.

That said, BW tokens might not be the perfect shell for it, but some other BW control kind of deck. Not saying the card doesnt fit by any means, only, I feel we are pretty good already building value over time, and I would fill those slots with something more disruptive, like a Liliana, or some additional hand disruption.

Quote from PlasmaCatcher »

Quote from metalgear85 »

Is disenchant good against EE, though? Dont they just play it, and if you cant counter, it resolves, they have priority, and they use it?

Yes.
If you suspect EE, and you should most of the time, only commit enough to the board to make them pull the trigger. Then rebuild.
If they don't crack it immediately and try to 'hold it up', don't over commit, but also don't be afraid to keep pressuring and look for a chance to win a virtual value exchange if they ever tap out.
EE wouldn't be the reason to run Disenchant post board, but it might have application against cards in a deck that run it, and if the opportunity for some serious smug points occurs, instant speed Disenchant is pretty sweet.
Same for Batterskull etc. It's all about timing and opportunity, so when they don't have the mana to threaten your board or protect there own, instant speed interaction, in some really obscure situations make it such a fun and effective card.

This is exactly what I mean

You can choose the name Bitterblossom with Runed Halo, but Bitterblossom's ability doesn't target anything (the word "you" doesn't indicate a target, for example [C.R. 114.10b]), so any effect that keeps you from being the target of certain spells or abilities, such as that from protection (C.R. 702.16b), won't affect Bitterblossom's ability.

A triggered ability targets something only if it identifies it with the word "target" (C.R. 114.1d), or uses a keyword that does so (C.R. 114.1e; see also C.R. 114.10a; under C.R. 701.34a, the support keyword action also uses "target [something]").

EDIT (Nov. 30, 2018): Edited to conform to rule changes with Dominaria.
EDIT (Mar. 10, 2019): Further edited to conform to rule changes with Dominaria.

Not to be a downer, but I don't think she is better than Gideon (yet, obviously nothing has been tested).
Gideon is able to create a token every turn, and with Serra you can only make one (that is a lot stronger than our other tokens, turning on removal for our opponent. On the other hand, it is Bolt proof, so it really depends on which removal the opponent has access to).
Her +2 only works for flyers, so aggro builds with Raise the Alarm and Legion's Landing, or decks that play History of Benalia benefit less from it.
Her ultimate is very good, but nonbos with Bitterblossom, which is one of our strongest cards.
I know it's not all bad, but I don't think this card boosts our deck that much.

The eidolons felt clunky with Light up the Stage. I never wanted to cast them off it and eidolon has just felt whelming lately, even in boros burn. In the matchups where it is good, it is likely the best card in the deck (UR phoenix, storm, etc...). But with no maindeck lifegain and playing three colors (so lots of shocking), it is more likely to get eidolon locked in some matchups (humans, spirits). I wanted every maindeck card to play well with plan A, burn the face. Then post-board I could bring in the powerful interaction. Whether or not this is correct is why we test.

Took this to a day 2 10-5 record at GP Atlanta (6-2 at end of day 1 losing the last round).
Main
4 iquisition of kozilek
3 thoughtseize
4 path to exile
2 fatal push
1 Legion's landing
3 Bitterblossom
4 intangible virtue
2 collective brutality
4 lingering souls
4 History of benalia
3 Sorin solemn visitor
1 Gideon Ally of zendikar
1 cast out

4 concealed courtyards
4 Marsh flats
4 Ghost quarter
3 shambling vent
2 godless shrine
2 windswept Heath
3 plains
1 swamp
1 vault of the archangel

SB
3 Stony silence
2 damping sphere
2 rest in peace
2 surgical extraction
2 wrath of god
2 fragmentize
2 collective brutality

R1 Jund 2-0
R2 Storm 2-1
R3 Humans 1-2
R4 Adnasuem 2-0
R5 Merfolk 2-0
R6 steam-kin red 2-0
R7 Bant spirits 2-0
R8 Bant Spirits 0-2 (Oscar Christensen : Pro from Denmark)
R9 Bant Spirits 0-2
R10 Burn 2-1 (Lucas Keifer)
R11 Humans 2-1 (Javiar Dominguez: reigning world champ)
R12 UW Control 2-0 (Luis Salvatto: reigning player of the year)
R13 UW Spirits 1-2 (i punted about times in this match and should've easily won (p.s. spell queller you don't haveto cast the card under))
R14 UW Control 2-0 (Peter Ingram : SCG Pro)
R15 Amulet Titan 0-2 (first bad matchup i had to play other than ad nasuem)

Interesting list. I'm not sure I agree with just 1 LotV. She seems like a card you either want a lot of or none of and the question is usually how well you can utilize your own graveyard. Since you have Start // Finish and Lingering Souls I think you actually want more Lilianas. But on the other hand you don't want to dilute the number of token producers so maybe you don't want any more. I think the card is good in the deck though.

I've never been a big fan of Cast Out. It's very expensive and I almost always cycled it when it was in my hand. Anguished Unmaking is probably a better version of the effect. many decks will have nature's claim / cryptic (bounce mode) to deal with it. And nature's claim is likely coming in to deal with BB / Stony / RIP anyway.

I've found Zealous Persecution to be great, even in my token-light build. I most often use it as a sudo-board wipe but it can also win games. It's a great card. I've been playing 2 recently and really like it.

So I took burn to my local Regionals and went 3-3 drop

My list:


R1 lost to Bant Spirits 2-1. Won G1 cause he was on land double noble open and didnt draw a land for 3 turns. G2, I was on a good 1 lander, but drew the second land two turns too late. Game 3 was close, but I fetched wrong (I fetched a mountain instead of sacred foundry) and that cost me the game.

R2 won vs Jund 2-1. Don't remember much, but in g2 he ate 4 with risk factor and the jumpstart to set up a topdeck burn spell to finish but drew a land.

R3 lost vs Counters Company 2-1. Lost G1 because I flooded. Game 2 Firedancer helped me stabilize the board and pulled me ahead. I prob should have mulled my g3 hand, but even with seeing 7 lands throughout that game, Firedancer kept the game somewhat competitive.

R4 lost vs Humans 2-1. Lost G1 cause I lost the die roll and drawing 2 eidolons vs a vial start feels bad. G2 was Saytr Firedancer's game. Dropped it on two and proceeded to murder his board and him. G3 was very close. Firedancer was able to kill a mantis rider before knight took care of him. Game was down to the wire, because he had two aurioks champions that game. Was able to path one immediately, but the second one stuck and was able to pull it out. There was a couple of periods when he was at 3, but I could not find the burn spell in time, just land. Also he blind meddling mage lightning helix and it was the card i drew at the second time he was on 3.

At this point I still played cause people in my car were still live, so I had some fun in the bottom tables

R5 Won vs Bant Spirits 2-1. G1 went Goblin Guide, Searing Blaze, Swiftspear+Searing Blaze. Yeah. G2 lost cause I mulled and kept a vantage, swiftspear, lbolt, lbolt, lavamancer, firedancer hand and never saw my second land while he went wanderer, thalia, captain, image, image. G3 opponent mulled to 5, and had a double vial and and was only able to vial in a wanderer.

R6 Won vs 5c Pelt Collector Zoo 2-1. On the draw for g1, he drops pelt collector on 1. Since my only interaction was 1 searing Blaze that game, i try to race. Well, when t2 is BTE Nacatl Vexing Devil, kind of hard to race. G2 I'm the aggressor with a double guide/bolt open. I did see a overgrown tomb and he trophy'd a guide. At that point, I figured 4 maybe 5 colors, maybe he plays tribal flames? I took a risk and brought in Firedancer in g3 and he did not see a removal spell for it until the last turn. I talked with him after the match cause his list looked sweet. Turns out he did run tribal flames as a finisher, but never saw it.

At that point, none of my car was live, so we went home.

Some things to take away.

I really like Satyr Firedancer vs creature matchups. Even in the matchups where I lost and brought it in, it put in a lot of work when I got to cast it. Even in the matchups where they have knight for an answer, id rather they kill it than gain 4 life if i've gotten value out of it already.

I'm mostly happy with my piloting that day. Aside from a few mistakes, I'm fine with the result

ugh, can we please stop the 'well gb got x, why cant i have y' whining? its petty and unproductive.

does that rare izzet counterspell blow? yeah sure it does. you know what else blows? 90% of rares and mythics in literally every set.

So I've been reading up on this topic for a while and still have multiple pages to go, but felt like posting as I won a PPTQ (47 players) with Burn last weekend. I've been playing Modern Burn since early 2015 (though not continuously), mainly Naya (Atarka's Command, no Nacatl). I did fairly well with it in the past, as in multiple PPTQ top 8s, but never won with it. Then Eldrazi Winter happened and I stopped playing burn for a while. Recently, I picked it up again, now playing Boros (splash G for Revelry) and it felt solid, but something annoyed me that already annoyed me before: the curve is too high. There are multiple spots in which I felt I got 'stuck' with all these 2 mana spells in hand and only 1-2 land, allowing me to play 0-1 spells a turn, which is just not good enough against the majority of Modern.

The obvious answer to this problem is substituting for cmc 1 spells, which leads to playing black for Bump in the Night and, if you want to really go for it, Gonti's Machinations, as well as a land less. I do think it should be Mardu, because Boros Charm is 1 of the strongest cards in the deck due dealing 4 in 1 card, and it allows for white sideboard cards. After going 4-0 in an FNM with this list, I replaced the last Ensnaring Bridge with the 2nd Crackling Doom in the sideboard and took it to a PPTQ. I played rather poorly and scrubbed out, but took the same 75 to another PPTQ last Saturday and played reasonably well to a winning finish:



The rationale here is that I want R/B on turn 1 most, because it allows me to cast almost everything in the deck and allows me to first cast Gonti's Machinations and then fetch and/or shock to get energy. Also, it's nice to not take infinite damage every game due to being 3 colors main.
Beyond that I think that Grim Lavamancer is great (certainly now) and is the only card that I tolerate in the deck that never deals damage as a topdeck.

The tournament itself went pretty smoothly and started out in a telling manner.
Round 1 Hollow One
He mulls and discards all the wrong cards which makes my bad hand good enough (I put him on another deck) to win G1. G2 the one choice I had was to attack into Gurmag Angler and bolt it or not and I decide to do it because he also has a flamewake to get back and doesn't have much else going. He blocks, I kill it and a few spells later he's dead without much pressure on me.

Round 2 Elves
She's not fast out of the gates with me on the play and even shocks in a temple garden for no reason giving me exactly lethal in an easy game. G2 I see no Searing effects, but control her board while attacking. I flood out horribly enough to not get her below 6 life despite her mulligan to 5. Oh well. G3 I again see no searing effect but enough burn to easily put her away. Don't think I've ever lost to Elves with Burn.

Round 3 Bant Spirits
This was pretty brutal. I open on swiftspear after he lays tapped Hallowed Fountain and that plants the idea of UW or Jeskai Control in my head. He then plays Botanical Sanctum but I don't add it up to Bant Spirits so I'm not sure what to do. I decide, with my hand of spike, 2 bolt, 2 rift bolt, to just play land and attack. He does nothing and takes 1, I suspend 2 rift bolts. He plays Rattlechains EoT which makes clear what he's playing so I assume he's on Spell Queller when he plays land 3 and passes after attacking. I rift bolt him twice and go for a spike. He quells, I bolt it and bolt his face for a turn 3 kill from 20 life with 1 overdamage.. 7 power swiftspear, not sure I've seen it that high ever before hehe.
G2 I Sear him out of the game, basically. Think we were done in 10 mins tops.

Round 4 Humans
I'm on the play, which means that his Thalia's Lieutenant + double Phantasmal Image is a turn too slow. I played around Meddling Mage best I could (really don't want to suspend Rift Bolt into it) and can resolve all spells in hand for the win.
G2 he keeps a reasonable 6 on the back of a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben but I have a bolt on t2 to keep attacking and playing spells so that I can double boros charm him to win the race.

Round 5 ID with Jeskai Control
I had a 50/50 on being paired with a fellow x-0 and got lucky. Even luckier that my bad matchup agreed to draw.

Round 6 ID with Naya Burn
I intended to play this round for seeding but due to the other x-0 losing the downpair in R5, IDing would guarantee 2nd or 3rd spot, which I'd take any day over a chance at 1st or maybe dropping out on breakers (mine weren't great).

I get into top 8 as 2nd seed together with, in order, Bogles, me, Jeskai Control, Humans, Infect, Naya Burn, Jund and G Tron.

Top 8 Jund
He thinks it's a good idea to play Dark Confidant against me and is soon explained the error of his ways when he immediately takes 3 from flipping Liliana. He gets lucky enough to not hit a non-land for 2-3 turns after that, though, which would have made it a very easy win, but the fact that I rather discard Blaze to his Kolaghan's Command than hold it for a potential land draw should make it pretty obvious to him that I like him having confidant in play.
Interestingly, I had a Gonti's in play with 1 energy and at first he doesn't even attack with Bob, but then, after having played Lili and dealing with my board, he decides it's time to attack and put me to 2 energy while he's at 4. Now he's dead to any non-land, non-lavamancer draw and promptly dies.
G2 he has a Collective Brutality but he only escalates once and still doesn't do much. Double Gonti give me enough life to race him.

Top 4 Naya Burn
My R6 opponent and now we have to play, but I'm on the play so I'm feeling pretty good. He might play Kor Firewalker and will probably take less damage of his mana base, which would make it much worse, but in principle I'm faster (especially on the play) and only need to dodge his helices.
G1 I have a good hand with 2 lands, haste creature, blaze and burn spells and flip a 2nd searing blaze to his GG. I Blaze and attack and he turns out to have a creature heavy hand, going GG Swift on T2. On my turn I play 3rd land and have to decide on which creature to kill. I choose his Spear as with GG he needs triple bolt exactly to kill me from 11 and with at least 2 spells, spear is bigger than guide. He tells me afterwards he would have had lethal if I killed his GG instead.
G2 I have multiple Helix and Gonti and put him in a spot where he has to shoot first. He does and I burn him out in response.

Top 2 G Tron
As you can see, the Top8 has gone very well for me, and not just in my matches. Tron beat Bogles, Burn beat Jeskai Control, then Tron beat Humans. Fun fact: this exact (well, I played Boros Burn) finals happened before in a big Dutch tournament (Dutch Open Series) in May, which I won. That one was hardly a match, but this one was.
G1 he has the absolute nuts with T3 Wurmcoil T4 wurmcoil. Could have beaten the first one if he didn't have a blocker (or removal for a creature) but sadly he did and I was down a game in a very good matchup.
G2 he mulls to 5 like Tron should in such a matchup and only has T4 tron. He digs for a payoff which only appears on T5: double wurmcoil. Nice. Well, fortunately I got him down to 7 before and go Crackling Doom, untap, Crackling Doom, Skullcrack for the win. The hand was a bit awkward but it got the job done, while he could almost taste victory already. Sorry Dave ;).
G3 I mull to 6, tossing a 3lander without creatures, for a solid 1-lander. He again mulls to 5 and has T4 tron or such. His payoff is a mere Worldbreaker, which I don't care about and as he's tapped out, I can burn him out with charm and crack.

Over the tournament (and other games I played so far) I've really liked this version. Gonti hasn't been a dead topdeck yet (always farm energy) and now that Ensnaring Bridge is such a known quantity in Burn, I like Crackling Doom instead. I made the conscious decision to a) not play enchantment removal and b) include shattering spree to only deal with solvable problems (Chalice, affinity/lantern). I might play 18 land for the 4th Charm because the deck is so good at spitting out cmc1 spells, I really can operate on fewer lands than Boros Burn. The reason I haven't yet is because of having keepable opening hands and landfall for Searing Blaze, but maybe that's just mathematically incorrect. This is a side I like about the deck, by the way: it's very easy to objectively point out the correct play/composition of the deck because everything pretty much does the same thing and all you care about is efficiency. I like operating under such restrictive conditions, which gives the deck a lot more play than it appears to have on first glance.

Quote from DCteamup »

Guys, my deck has been screwing me over lately. How to get off this mindset and keep playing burn like I have been doing the last full year? I've changed nothing in my playstyle that makes me play worse, nor did I alter my list to a certain extend, the only changes have been to the SB due to local meta.

Lately my deck is either giving me all the lands or none and it's starting to get really frustrating. I've been playing the 19 lands stock list for quite some time, but the last weeks the RNG is insane. I either stick on 1 land, or get a ton of lands. Last week's PPTQ I even had more lands in play than my UW control opponent.
Again yesterday's PPTQ, I've never mulled as much, regularly to 5 only to keep a forced hand because going to 4 would mean even more disaster. From the 12-14 games (6 rounds) I've played I've seen I think a total of 4 Swiftspears and 7 Guides, rest was all spells. A ton of games where I never found my second land, or topdecking land when your opponent is on 3 or less. As a big thank you, round 3 gave me Martyr as opponent. I ended the day going 1-5 (had to wait until my buddy was done who luckily eventually ended up winning the RPTQ slot). Even on the way home, just after I cleaned my car's front window, a bird crapped on it a minute later! This was basically a quick recap of how the day went, or any last events I played burn.

A month ago I visited GP Brussels going 6-1-1 in side events including Modern double up. Yaay deck.

The deck is perfectly fine, another player playing close to the same list managed to top8 yesterday, almost getting to semifinals. Is it just a wave of incredibly unlucky RNG? How do you guys cope with this as I'm sure you've all been in the same place I'm in? Burn is frustrating me at the moment and takes away the fun of playing the deck if time after time things like this happen.

I remember recently I believe Brad Nelson published an article about not looking back and to just focus on the current game you're playing, not even think about g1 if you're playing g2/g3. I can understand the theory, but it's kinda hard if you get stuck on 1 or 8 lands in almost the entire tournament.

Thanks
DC

Honestly, I cope with this because I played poker a lot back in undergrad and I got used to the concepts of "outs" and "liklihood" from losing to runner-runner straight draws. Improbable outcomes aren't impossible outcomes. All you can do is try to sufficiently shuffle your deck such that you approximate a random deck as best you can. What's a truly random deck? A deck where every possible ordering is equally likely. Everyone says "7 riffle shuffles to randomize a 52 card deck", and that comes from an adademic paper called "Trailing the Dovetail Shuffle to its Lair" (I think). Magic decks aren't 52 cards, but it's close. Depending on how you shuffle, you might be very far from approximating a "Dovetail" or riffle shuffle, and that means you need to shuffle a lot more than 7 times.

I decided a little while ago to take 60 numbered cards and shuffle them the way I tend to shuffle and record the order after 1 shuffle. I tend to cut the deck almost exactly in half every time and I mash shuffle but sometimes I overshoot heavily and only interleave half of each half (ie 15 cards from stack 1, 30 interleaved cards, 15 cards from stack 2). I then recorded 50 shuffle "patterns" this way and wrote a python script that would simulate multiple iterations of randomly chosen shuffle patterns. I then recorded the position of the cards as a function of their original position.

What's that look like? The images are the starting position, after 1 shuffle, 7 shuffles, 10 shuffles, ans 12 shuffles. What should this look like after a lot of iterations? Each card should have 1/60 (0.0166667) probability of being in each other position. After 12 shuffles, the bounaries (see the color bar) are between about 0.01655 and 0.01685, which differs from 1/60 by 1% maximum. After 10, this is about 0.01645 to 0.017, or in the vicinity of 2%, and there are faint streaks. After 7, there are very obvious streaks left in the plot and it differs from what I want by more than 8% maximum. I would argue that my personal shuffle technique requires 12 shuffles. I simulated up to 19 shuffles, and the bounds are not much different from 12 (its about 0.01655 to 0.01675). My apologies that I didn't put titles or axis labels on these. The file names are "counts_X", where X is the number of shuffles.

So, I deal with all of this by recognizing how statistics works, and then doing some investigating to figure out if I'm shuffling sufficiently. Now I shuffle a lot between games, and I don't get upset when improbable outcomes happen.

Quote from MagicYio »

How do you feel about the card choices? (6 planeswalkers, of which 2 Liliana of the Veil, no Spectral Procession, Start // Finish, 3 Bitterblossom instead of 4, Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin, how did the sideboard work?)

I didn't use Liliana enough to get much of a feel for her. I have generally run the 2/2 Sorin/Gideon split and liked that, but this was the first time running Liliana.

No Spectrals was interesting but not a big issue on token generating, generally. I was actually happy not to have them that day as I faced Blood Moon or Land Destruction in 4 out of 6 real matches, and it would have been hard to cast it.

Didn't really see much of Start // Finish either, so not much to write home about. I do love the instant speed of it though against decks that I may need to remove a creature on their turn but also need to create a board presence if I don't.

The Bitterblossoms seemed fine. I saw them a decent bit still, but I faced enough aggro/combo decks that they didn't matter much in most matches and I sided them out a decent bit. If it was a heavy control/midrange meta, I would probably go up to 4.

I didn't blow up any lands all night with my lands as none of the decks I played against really cared about it, except Ponza and we didn't draw destruction lands and mana enchantments at the same time. I dodged the Tron player and saw no one with man lands. They were more useful as mana for me and the colorless didn't seem to hurt (and they made just as good mountains as any of my other non basics. ) So, they seemed fine. Better to have and not need, I suppose.

The sideboard seemed solid for what I faced. My friends had told me beforehand that there was all kinds of things running around at the LGS but a lot of aggro and combo stuff, so I adjusted accordingly. I dropped 3x stony silence for the 3x damping sphere (and it paid off) and I think I switched out 2x Pithing needle for the 2x blessed alliance (which seemed a solid choice for the night). I felt like I usually had the cards I needed in the sideboard, it was just a matter of drawing them, like usual. As MisterMuffin21 mentioned above, it certainly wouldn't hurt to bring back a runed halo or 2 with some of those decks running around.