MTG Salvation

Quote from elconquistador1985 »

I don't think he's high on LUtS in Burn, but just acknowledging that some are.

I'm not a fan either, but I didn't test it yet. Most of the "Card draw" I've tested in burn didn't turn out great, but maybe it's gonna be different this time. It's the first card draw spell in red that's both one mana and a draw 2, which is technically a +1 and it's easy to enable the spectacle in burn. We can't cast it on turn 1 which is kind of a big deal and there's definitely some awkward scenarios of card exiled (two lands, two 2-mana cards that you don't have time to cast, etc), but Light up the stage still looks very good. It bring the old question of how good must a "draw" card be to be ran in burn tho.

We don't want Browbeat or Risk factor because 3 mana and we give the choice to our opponent. Even if both choices are arguably good for us, they're not straight draw power cards. We don't run Faithless looting or Cathartic reunion because they're not a +1 (Hell, faithless is a -1) and it's mana spent on card filtering instead of burning. If deck thinning was our problem, we'd be running Street wraith and Mishra's Bauble. Fantastic cantrips, but wraith is dangerous in this aggro meta, and Bauble is kinda slow, AND running either or both of those options will make mulligans really risky.
Idealy we'd want to BURN while drawing, but the cards we have that do this are kind of mediocre (See Needle drop, Electrolyze, Magma Jet)

So it's definitely the +1 for one mana that warms people up to Light up the stage, but is it really good enough for burn or are we wasting time not burning stuff?

"To burn or not to burn. That is the question."

Quote from Stay_On_Target »

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creature (10) 4 Goblin Guide 2 Grim Lavamancer 4 Monastery Swiftspear Enchantment (4) 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel Basic Land (19) 2 Arid Mesa 4 Bloodstained Mire 5 Mountain 2 Sacred Foundry 2 Stomping Ground 4 Wooded Foothills	Instant (15) 4 Atarka's Command 4 Lightning Strike 4 Searing Blaze 3 Collision // Colossus Sorcery (12) 4 Lava Spike 4 Rift Bolt 4 Skewer the Critics	Sideboard (15) 3 Rest in Peace 3 Satyr Firedancer 2 Path to Exile 2 Deflecting Palm 3 Destructive Revelry 2 Exquisite Firecraft

I want to focus on Collision // Colossus and your general comment on pump spells for a sec. Pump spell are not burn spell and have unfortunately no place in burn unless some burn effect is attached to it (See Atarka's command). We need way more creature than 12/14 creatures for a pump spell to be even decent, let alone in burn. The potential +4 damage on a creature swing is unfortunately offset by it's dependence on the presence of said creature which makes the card worhtless by itself, unlike AC that can still do 3 damage on its own with the potential for more. And there's also removal to account for.

We could get the creature count up, but then we become more akin to a zoo deck, and it's not really the place to talk about this. (don't think zoo want that either, which would mean an even bigger no in burn.) Pump spell has always been more of a thing for infect. The explosive potential is there, but removal is a little too prevalent, and we just don't run enough creature to make pump spells worthwhile in burn.

EDIT: Oh, and while we're at it, if you run white mana, you run Boros Charm. No questions.

ARGHH!!! We are this close to having an actually playable mono-red list it's not even funny! Like, the first 56 or so cards write themselves, but I just can't figure out what else to play without splashing any color(s).

Do I give Vexing Devil a chance? Is more Grim Lavamancer too clunky? Is Searing blood worth it mainboard? Do I up one or two lands? If I do, do I fill the rest with copies of Shard volley or do I give a try to some 3 CMC cards like Exquisite firecraft? There's also creature like Spark Elemental, Hellspark elemental and Keldon Marauders, but is it really worth it? Do I do a mish-mash of some of the above?

I really didn't think another set of pseudo-bolts would give me such a pitiful deckbuilder's crisis...

Are we really doomed to splash white for Boros charm (and several other relevant sideboard cards) and/or black for Bump in the night for eternity?

Quote from Kizzel »

This list just topped;

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18827&d=317772&f=MO

First list I see with Ajani in it.

What is this? Did I just see someone running ajani goldmane and doing good? A singleton of both Timely reinforcements and shefet dunes in the main too? I was specifically told not to do the later by so many people and caved in...

Also, holy balls that sideboard is anti-burn as all hell

Quote from Kizzel »

Is Bitterblossom mandatory for this deck to work?

No. Version with Bitterblossom are more focused on attrition and getting value over time, bordering on control-midrange in playstyle and liking disruption a bit more. Builds with raise the alarm tend to be faster and will usually play more aggresive cards like Legion's landing and Honor of the pure. Both version are fine. Some even do a split between the blossoms and the alarm. It really depend on which card upside you like and which downside you're willing to deal with.

Quote from elconquistador1985 »

I don't want to give the impression that I'm annoyed by talking about different cards, so I apologize if that's the impression I'm giving off.

At the very worst, I'd say you are stern and that's a good thing. It's important to get a reality check when you only see the good side of the card. It might not be "fun" to hear for everyone, but it helps when the goal of the thread is to make the deck as competitive as possible.

It actually helped me dodge a few bad apples like Shrine of burning rage and Vexing Devil. (Especially vexing. I was a big advocate of it until I saw your post detailing why you don't like the card)

Quote from tarotplz »

They don't really disrupt the manabase much at all. Most people actually play more than just 2 GQ. I think it'S a very important card to have in the deck. A 2WW situation almost never comes up.

Might as well drop my 2-cents on this too. I have a 23 lands manabase with 4 nonwhite sources (2 Ghost quarter, 1 Vault of the archangel and 1 swamp) and I rarely have issues dropping a Spectral procession turn 3. Not saying it doesn't happen, but if I can't drop it turn 3, I usually have something else I can do until the fourth land drops(Liliana of the veil, Lingering souls, 2-drops + 1 drops or a land entering tapped, etc.).

Hell at one point I was Abzan and I had more trouble hitting GB for Abrupt decay than I had hitting WWW for spectral.

I've always been a big fan of the 4 Thoughtseize / 2 Inquisition of Kozilek split rather than the 3/3 and 2/4 I often see. The new unbans only solidify my opinion.

If one is worried about jace, it's not such a bad idea to pack one or two Pithing Needle in the side just in case. Duress is also good. If we're talking mainboard answers, tarotplz probably has the right idea here with Anguished unmaking.

TL;DR: I want to play Emrakul in BW token and I'm splashing blue for it. Need help for ways to make it work, good blue cards to make the splash worth it and/or arguments to convice me this is a bad idea

Soooo.... I'm experimenting a bit with the deck and I am looking at ways to cheat Emrakul, the aeons torn into play with cards like Polymorph and Windbrisk heights. I know I saw a couple of post earlier in this thread talking about this and I wanted to see for myself how well it performs. Here's the current list:

I know I need some way to discard Emrakul if I draw it for Polymorph to work. That's why I'm running two Liliana of the veil (Maybe more in the future?) and a full playset of Collective Brutality in the main so that I can discard Emrakul if I draw it. In addition, I can also Thoughtseize myself to discard Emrakul as a last resort, hense why I run it instead of Inquisition of kozilek. Another small flaw of the card is that you need to target your creature instead of a creature being part of the cost. Because of that, your opponent can use a spot removal on the Polymorph target and make the spell fizzle completely. The heavy discard I run can remedy that problem I guess, but still It's something I'm aware of.

Second way to cheat Emrakul is with the hideaway ability of Windbrisk heights. It's harder for two reasons:
1) you need three creature attacking (which is not such a big deal for us)
2) you need to be a little lucky for Emrakul to be among the four selectable card for the hideaway.
However, all this effort rewards you with the extra turn of Emrakul since it's "play the exiled card without paying its mana cost". (They only use Play instead of cast because the card you hideaway could be a land and you can't cast a land, but I assure you, it works).

There's also quite a downside in getting an Emrakul under Windbrisk heights, if either the land gets destroyed or you can't attack with three creature, emrakul is stuck there and all copies of Polymorph becomes dead. I've been thinking of maybe running a second emrakul to avoid this. It would also mean I don't absolutely have to discard it if I draw one for Polymorph, but it also means I have more chance to draw into one, which I don't want to but it may be a necessary evil if I want to cheat into Emrakul.

I run Raise the alarm instead of bitterblossom as it help getting a lot of attackers quick. I also decided to test Legion's landing at the same time since it's the same condition has the hideaway to flip it and the early token it provide does go well with a turn 2 Raise the alarm. It actually opens up a potential turn 3 emrakul scenario. (Assuming a land drop each turn and no removal, Turn 1 Legion, Turn 2 RtA, Turn 3 attack with 3 tokens, flip legion, tap 4 mana for Polymorph to Emrakul, Turn 4 GG)

I also thought that maybe I could go for more blue cards, but I didn't really think of any at that moment. I don't really want the cantrips or counterspells over my Spectral Procession or over-all token gameplan, but I may be dead wrong on either of those claims. I also don't know what kind of sideboard Blue opens up for me. If I don't go Esper and just stay with a blue splash for Polymorph, I might cut the island. Just felt like being able to fetch a blue for a Path to exile was a nice back-up plan to have.

Well thank you for reading through all this wall of text. Any input is appreciated as this is currently under construction/testing.

Quote from Pokerkingdave »

I disagree about timely reinforcements. We almost never have fewer creatures against most decks

I see where you're coming from. If we're talking Jund , abzan or midrange in general, we're likely to have more creature very quickly and that situation will likely stay that way. However, decks like Naya zoo or burn (You know aggro decks in general) will have creatures on the board by turn 1/2 and attacking while dispensing plenty of removal to keep the advantage.

Unless we run Raise the alarm or Legion's landing (Still have to test this card), we will have no creature on the battlefield until turn 3 which mean we'll have lost life. If this is the first token generator we fire off, it's a huge swing, especially if we put an intangible virtue turn 2. Gaining back six life and putting three 2/2 will at least slow down anybody. Couple of Worst case scenario are: you get a Skullcrack in respond (which still leaves you with three tokens) or All the tokens gets no trades and only chump block, which still gained you one turn at least and a couple of life.

also, I don't want to talk for anybody here (definitely correct me if I'm wrong), but I often loose tokens to spot removal and combat trades (Or chump blocking). It's pretty rare that all of my tokens survive the whole game, and I think it would be foolish to assume their safety. A scenario where we have less monster than an opponent more than once in the same game is not uncommon, especially against aggro.

Now if we're talking mainboard inclusion, I agree with you, it's not that good of a card simply because it can be dead in some scenarios (Controls and combo in general). But this is my opinion for the card in the 75. It's a good card to have against burn and aggro in the sideboard. At worst it buys us time, at best it swings the game around.

Finally! Pillage is modern legal.

Gives us maindeck options to destroy annoying artifacts, and Hollow One.

February 2019 opposing hate analysis
The following is a lot of data that's tough to digest, but it might be helpful to you to know what kind of lifegain to expect at various times, what counterspells people are playing, and what discard spells people are playing. This analysis comes from MTGGoldfish data with some cleaning procedure applied to it to try to clean up any bad deck names. I then go through these deck lists and find instances of "counter target", "lifelink", and "gain N life"/"gains N life" in the card text. On top of that, I search for Leyline of Sanctity, Oketra's Last Mercy, Chalice of the Void, Phyrexian Unlife, and Spellskite. The deck population is 1131 decks. Cards that show up less than 0.5% of the time are not printed, and I've also removed some cards that don't affect us like Disdainful Stroke and Ceremonious Rejection.
Per card splits: Go here if you want to find a list of what decks play specific cards.
Card fractions: This is averaged over the whole meta and is the fraction of decks that play the card in the maindeck/sideboard without taking into account how many copies they play. These give a general idea of what cards to expect from a randomly chosen deck.
Maindeck: The top cards are Thoughtseize (15.30%), Inquisition of Kozilek (14.59%), Scavenging Ooze (11.85%), Cryptic Command (10.70%), Chalice of the Void (8.93%), Lightning Helix (8.05%), Remand (7.96%).
Compare to the top cards from last month Inquisition of Kozilek (17.20%), Thoughtseize (16.76%), Cryptic Command (10.98%), Lightning Helix (10.84%), Scavenging Ooze (9.97%), Remand (8.38%), Grove of the Burnwillows (7.23%).
Sideboard: The top cards are Collective Brutality (17.60%), Dispel (17.33%), Nature's Claim (15.83%), Negate (11.49%), Knight of Autumn (9.64%), Spell Pierce (9.64%), Dragon's Claw (8.40%).
Compare to the top cards from last month Dispel (18.64%), Negate (18.06%), Nature's Claim (14.60%), Collective Brutality (13.87%), Spell Pierce (13.29%), Knight of Autumn (9.39%), Thoughtseize (7.51%).
Hate cards by meta decks: Go here if you want to see what kind of hate cards specific decks play.
Meta composition: This is just a core dump of the fraction of decks out of the total for this month with each name. Some of these deck names might be fuzzy, so the results are approximate.

Enchantments:
Maindeck: The top cards are Eidolon of the Great Revel (7.34%), Search for Azcanta (6.19%), Blood Moon (4.60%), Detention Sphere (3.89%), Courser of Kruphix (3.63%), Hardened Scales (3.01%), Phyrexian Unlife (2.12%).
Sideboard: The top cards are Rest in Peace (18.21%), Stony Silence (14.50%), Blood Moon (12.82%), Leyline of the Void (11.76%), Leyline of Sanctity (6.54%), Eidolon of Rhetoric (6.01%), Ghirapur Aether Grid (4.24%).

Link to previous month: January (apologies if it goes to the wrong spot on the page, it's post 2143).

Quote from TomCourtenay »

Can someone provide an thorough analysis of the benefits of Skewer the Critics and Light up the Stage ? I've been around since 2014-ish with Mardu Burn, then Boros Burn (splashing green for Destructive Revelry in the sideboard). I feel what we've seen of Burn so far was very strong. At first, the new cards seem shaky and could have some upsides, but provide some downsides too (which make me reluctant to them). Thoughts guys?

Cheers !

In my testing with Skewer the Critics, I was able to cast it for R about 80% of the time. It's very easy for us to enable Spectacle, and that makes it another Lightning Bolt. I think it's an automatic 4-of in Burn now. Rift Bolt as a Spectacle enabler is a good sequence to play into if you can. Don't make the mistake of trying to get a Prowess trigger off of it. If you swing with Swift and connect, just fire it off so you don't get stuck with it.

I do not think that Light Up the Stage is good enough, and I think it's just the next draw card in a line of draw cards that Burn players pick up and drop in their quest to solve the "running out of gas" problem. I think that the most likely outcome with that card is a bad one. A deck is about 1/6 creatures, about 1/2 spells, and about 1/3 lands. If all creatures are live draws, then 2/3 of the deck is live. If they aren't, then 1/2 of the deck is live. The possible outcomes are:

Land-Land (probability 1/9): If I need a spell, I never consider this a good outcome and I consider it a waste of mana. If I'm 1 spell from winning, then I would have already had that spell in hand if I didn't put LUtS in my deck.

Land-Spell (probability 1/3): This amounts to a tax of R on your burn spell and you got a land to go along with it. I doubt the land is likely to be relevant, so I think this outcome is just worse than playing a burn spell.

Land-Creature (probability 1/9): If you cast LUtS late, this is likely very bad. If you draw an Eidolon late, you probably don't want it. If you draw Guide or Swift, it's probably irrelevant because they're outclassed and are just blockers.

Creature-Creature (probability 1/36): Probably not what you're after. Maybe 2 hasters is ok, but you need an empty board for it.

Creature-Spell (probability 1/6): If the creature isn't relevant, this is the same as an R tax.

Spell-Spell (probability 1/4): This is obviously good, except when you draw Rift Bolts or things that get trapped in exile due to lack of mana.

If creatures are always live draws, it's 1/9 dead-dead, 4/9 live-dead, and 4/9 live-live and that implies that 55% of the time is either dead or a tax of R on the burn spell you draw and only 45% of the time is a "good outcome". If creatures are always dead, it's 1/4 dead-dead, 1/2 live-dead, and 1/4 live-live and you're looking at 75% bad outcomes and 25% good outcomes. I think this suggests that it's not worth playing.

Imagine you need it to bail you out of a bad late game situation. If that situation is that you are light on lands, I'd question both how you're enabling Spectacle without enough lands in play and how likely it is that you're even going to win if you draw the lands now. Creatures probably are either dead or not connecting anymore later in the game, so it relies on Rift Bolt or having 2 lands in play. If you're flooding and need spells, there's only a 25% chance of double spell and I'd also question whether it's likely that double spell gets you there.

I've seen people suggest that land-land is good because "it moves them off the top". If you play LUtS and move 2 lands off the top, you've gained a slightly higher probability of drawing a spell on your next draw step because you've changed the denominator. In this sense, LUtS is worth some fraction of a spell here. Had you played a burn spell instead, that burn spell would have been worth 100% of a burn spell. I don't consider moving 2 lands off the top a uniformly positive outcome.

In addition to all of this, it's a bad top deck when you can't Spectacle. I don't think it's worth playing in Burn.

We do not. That's a good suggestion and others' input on it would be great before I add something there.

In my opinion:

Turn 1: You want to open with Guide/Swift if you can. Otherwise, Rift Bolt or Lava Spike (though such hands are problematic, though no one can blame you for keeping 2 lands, 3 bolts, 2 Charms or something).

Turn 2(option a): Hold your land, swing with your creature to bait removal, land+Eidolon on second main (if available).
Turn 2(option b): Otherwise, I'll often try to remove excess 2CMC cards from my hand at this stage so that I can play 2CMC+1CMC next turn. Searing Blaze things if it matters. Hold Skullcrack for now. Holding a Charm until your opponent's EoT is fine.
Turn 2(option c): If I can set up something busted like Rift+Rift+Bolt+Charm for a big Swiftspear next turn, I probably will try (because that's our easiest T3 kill).

Turn 3: Continue removing 2CMC and 3CMC cards from your hand as appropriate.

You know how your opponent always whines about your lucky topdecks? Plan on that happening and make sure you have the mana available to accomplish it. This means that you should fire off cards so that you aren't bottlenecked on mana with your next topdeck (as in you want to be able to hardcast Rift Bolt to win if you draw it). If you're heavy on white cards in hand and have a fetch available but no other open mana, burn a fetch for a tapped Sacred Foundry so that you'll be able to Charm+Helix if you have one in hand and topdeck the other.

Quote from CatParty »

I'd just like to clarify - if we do run LUtS, I think we need to cut Rift Bolt, that's certainly too risky a card with the spectacle mechanic. And instead of thinking of LUtS as a Treasure Cruise or a Divination, I think we need to think about it as a new type of draw spell. Essentially Light Up the Stage is more like "Pay R: Scry 2, you may choose to put those cards into your hand instead". Which really makes me ask: Would you (in the worst case scenario for LUtS) pay R for a Preordain that doesn't draw you a card? From my own experience playing burn, knowing the majority of my losses are from bad late-game draws, I would say Yes, I would be willing to pay that.

I'm not willing to cut any bolt variants for a card just to hope to draw burn variants, especially given how friendly Rift Bolt is with Skewer the Critics (and would be with enabling LUtS). I think it's diluting the consistency of the deck far too much.

Some have called to Treasure Cruise as an analogy for LUtS (I shared what's written below on Reddit the other day). I think that they aren't as close as people would like to believe, because draw 3 is significantly better than draw 2. Let's assume that a deck is 2/3 Burn spells, which assumes that creatures are always live draws (which isn't necessarily true) and let's ignore that Rift Bolt is almost a dead draw with LutS. We'll also assume that whatever we draw with LutS is definitely getting played this turn it next turn, rather than left in exile.

With draw 2, your outcomes are 1/9 to draw 0 spells, 4/9 to draw 1 spell, and 4/9 to draw 2 spells. LutS draws 1.33 Burn spells on average, but with some variance. It's worth 2 only 44% of the time. When you draw 1, you're basically adding a tax of R to that spell and that happens 44% of the time. That's too high for my liking.

With draw 3, it's 1/27 to draw 0, 2/9 to draw 1, 4/9 to draw 2, and 8/27 to draw 3. Treasure Cruise draws 2 Burn spells on average, also with some variance. It's worth more than 1 almost 75% of the time. I'm willing to pay a tax of 1/2U or 1/3U for the spells I draw, and the tax of U for 1 spell only happens 22% of the time.

Put another way, LutS has a 55% probability of what I consider to be bad outcomes (0 or 1 spell) because those outcomes imply that simply playing Lightning Strike in place of LutS would have been an equal or better outcome. TC has only a 25% of those same bad outcomes.

In order for me to accept that playing LUtS is worth it, I'd have to convince myself that "R: draw 2 lands" is a good outcome for the reason of "you just moved them off the top of the deck". At present, I regard that as a bad outcome. Think of it this way, instead of paying mana for a burn spell and drawing lands the next 2 turns, you pay mana to move 2 lands off you're deck and get a slightly higher probability to draw a non-land next draw step. The first situation may cause a loss, or it could cause a win if the burn spell you had instead of LUtS wins now.

I think that a Mardu list should play 0 Inspiring Vantage and 3 Blackcleave Cliffs. You need access to turn 1 black mana and you'd like it to be painless, but you never need turn 1 white (Chained requires a Foundry anyway). I'd be worried about 0 Skullcrack in the 75, and I think you could cut all copies of Dragon's Claw for that.

Quote from GregLich »

Quote from elconquistador1985 »

Well, KCI is officially gone.

I don't think cindervines is playable. 3cmc drev is terrible and I don't think that the pseudo-pyrostatic pillar is worth it.

Hello Bro, can u share your list with side???

This is what I've been playing:

Quote from Chrono_Trigger »

Now we have to ask the same eternal question : do we really need enchantment removal ? if no, then we can consider being just RW instead of RW/g by putting smash to smithereens in our sideboard (

which enchantment is played right now that is causing us some trouble ?
Leyline : is it still played ?
Worship : it might be played as a 1-2of in the sideboard of humans or spirit ... i still wouldnt side in my disenchant for that
boggles : we are loosing that match anyway, the disenchant wont help that much. just board in skullcrack/deflecting palm and hope to get lucky

The answer to your questions can be found here. About 5-6% of decks in the sample played Worship. About 2-3% played Leyline. Daybreak Coronet is in about 2% of decks. At a glance, I see no reason for Burn to care about enchantments right now and I haven't felt that Burn should care about enchantments for quite some time. I've been on Smash for a while now.

Well, KCI is officially gone.

I don't think cindervines is playable. 3cmc drev is terrible and I don't think that the pseudo-pyrostatic pillar is worth it.

Hey folks. I'm curious where our decisions rested with cinder vines vs destructive revelry? Forgetting the argument for a sec about should we splash green, let's assume we do. You know... For science

DRev is faster, instant speed, costs less. More applicable to fast matchups.

Cinder Vines is good vs KCI, and longer matches - crazily enough mini eidolon 5-8 vs UW control.

I think DRev is still the better call but let's debate