I really won’t push the issue any further because at the end of the day I’m totally okay with every other Burn pilot running Stomping Grounds in our mirror matches.
Right, but what are the decks running both artifacts and enchantments that take advantage of that flexibility? Ad Nauseum?
Any time you care about artifacts specifically, Smash is just a better card than DRev, and Shattering Spree/Stony Silence let you attack artifacts from different axes as well if you choose to go that route instead.
Worship is arguably the more relevant enchantment since the decks that run them are creature decks (spirits and Bant) which we have much more even games against than Leyline decks. Even considering that though, it feels super narrow. DRev and Kor Firewalkers in an open/unknown meta just always feels wrong to me. They’re great cards as targeted hate at an LGS but I fundamentally don’t understand why so many people play either card at big tournaments or online.
In an another episode of "Modern Being Modern" I just played a league where I lost 0-2 to Storm and won 2-0 versus Ad Nauseum (he found out the hard way that Angel's Grace still triggers Eidolon before it resolves).
That Storm player had absolutely insane hands. He won both games on the draw on turn 3. The first game he beat a turn 2 Eidolon into a turn 3 Eidolon (that was an interesting line: I had 3 mana available and an Eidolon and Helix in hand staring down a resolved Baral. I opted for the Eidolon and I'm still pretty sure that was correct, but results oriented thinking is sort of messing with me a bit.)
I haven’t heard anything about an upcoming errata, but they have been talking about just not using life loss moving forward to make things easier to understand (Creeping Chill is a good recent example), which I think is a reasonable change. Maybe they’ll just errata the more recent stuff when they make “Arena-friendly Modern”.
Personally, I’d like to see them restrict life loss to just self-damaging abilities (e.g. “Pay N life” triggers) so they can’t be avoided and use damage for offensive stuff.
EDIT: To elaborate, recurring damage from creatures is the second best way to win the mirror match (the first is winning the die roll), so if you’re able to efficiently remove them, it helps swing things in your favour. It also helps in most other creature aggro matchups as well.
Yeah, nerves are understandable and as good a reason as any. I just wanted to make sure I was reading the play correctly in your recap and wasn’t missing a different line that you were thinking about instead.
I swing with swiftspear, he blocks with mage, i bolt the mage, and lava spike him to 5 and pass.
I’m curious about this line that you took. Was the Meddling Mage pumped up to 3 health? If you just bolted face then your 2/3 Swiftspear would eat the mage anyway. Why bolt it in response to blocks? I’m assuming it was since you noted the Noble Hierarch was pumped up as well.
Even if it was a 3/3, it seems like it would have been better to Spike before combat to put him at 5 and make your Swiftspear a 2/3, then when he blocked, you could bolt face and eat the mage for free. Board state ends up the same but you put him at 2 and give yourself a lot more outs on your top deck. Even if he decided to block with the Hierarch instead, you’d just hold bolt to give yourself more options on their turn. In this case, you could hit the mage when the other one is on the stack next turn (since he’d likely name either that or Searing Blaze) or still go face and hope for other top decks depending on what spells you’ve already used.
Yeah, Creeping Chill is pushing Dredge back up enough that I have to run GY hate again. I had cut it recently due to the lack of GY decks in favour of even more creature removal, but I’ve had to switch back after GRN.
I’ve been seriously considering switching back to a 1/3 Lavamancer/Skullcrack split in the MB as well rather than the 2/2 split I’ve been running. Burn has sort of taken over as the most prominent aggro deck again, so everyone seems to be running a bunch of maindeck life gain now. I even ran into a mill deck running Crypt Incursion and Extirpate naming Skullcrack yesterday. Still managed to win in 3 but I wasn’t expecting to see that in game 1.
Swapping out the two Exquisite Firecraft in my sideboard for two Risk Factor is definitely something I’m willing to try. They serve similar purposes, but I think Risk Factor may be more generally useful against Blood Moon decks when I side out my white and go full mono-red (if you haven’t done this against Ponza or Mardu Pyromancer, I really recommend trying it. It works surprisingly well). I’ve never been a huge fan of the sorcery speed on Exquisite Firecraft either, so another instant is welcome.
I’m not sure I’d run them main board over Skullcrack but I could see it maybe being possible if your local meta has less main deck life gain.
If you’re running a 3 cmc spell to stop creatures, I feel like bridge is stronger. It forces them to have an answer to it and can lock them out of multiple turns while you draw your inevitable burn spells to finish them off. Anger is just a one turn answer.
It’s kind of an addition to the other lesson learned about Searing Blaze, but the rules about it having two targets also means you can hold priority and cast multiple Blazes on the same target creature with 3 or less health to hit your opponent for more damage. Even though the first one will resolve and kill it, the second one will still hit the opponent’s face.
Also, using Skullcrack to force damage through to protection from red creatures after they’ve blocked is another one that can be handy at times. Can come up in mirror matches with Kor Firewalker or against Affinity with Etched Champion.
Thanks Decepticon, Reslin, Conquistador!
Appreciate the insight, I think I'm going to skip Bridge for now and start with a list like this: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1191298#paper
Cheers
That looks like a solid core to start with. If your budget is able to stretch a little more, I’d recommend picking up the fourth Inspiring Vantage, a third Searing Blood, two Deflecting Palms, two Kor Firewalkers, one (or two) Shard Volley and a playset of Smash to Smithereens to give yourself a little bit of extra flexibility to adjust to the meta. Those additions are pretty inexpensive overall for how many more options they’ll provide. You should definitely just jam a few games with your current 75 first though just to make sure you enjoy the play style.
Just to make your initial 75 cheaper and equally effective, you could even just replace the third Lavamancer with a third Searing Blood. I think you’d really want to be running 12 fetches if you’re going to play 3 Lavamancers.
It’s been touched on a bit at times throughout the thread, but I have been really, really liking Exquisite Firecraft in the sideboard.
I originally dismissed it purely as an anti-control card, which I don’t think we really need (I am firmly of the opinion that if you’re having a hard time vs control as Burn, you’re probably just not being patient enough; counter spells are relatively easy to play around by pulsing damage and control decks in Modern still need to tap out at some point to deploy threats). But realizing its potential as just another Burn spell that deals 4 damage has really changed my opinion on it. I’m finding it really makes sideboarding against combo decks a lot easier too, e.g. Titanshift where we want to take out 4 Searing Blaze but really only want to being in 2-3 Path of Exile (As an aside, It directly won me the game against a TS opponent the other day as a top deck while they were at 4 health and had their Valakut combo set up to go off the next turn). The card also serving as an anti-control tool is more of an added bonus for me now rather than the main reason I run it.
Kor Firewalker is too narrow and I detest Deflecting Palm. Exquisite Firecraft is the best card I’ve found for that two card flex spot in my SB and I think it’s going to end up being a staple for me in an open meta going forward (I still run Firewalkers locally due to a higher percentage of Burn).
Any time you care about artifacts specifically, Smash is just a better card than DRev, and Shattering Spree/Stony Silence let you attack artifacts from different axes as well if you choose to go that route instead.
That Storm player had absolutely insane hands. He won both games on the draw on turn 3. The first game he beat a turn 2 Eidolon into a turn 3 Eidolon (that was an interesting line: I had 3 mana available and an Eidolon and Helix in hand staring down a resolved Baral. I opted for the Eidolon and I'm still pretty sure that was correct, but results oriented thinking is sort of messing with me a bit.)
Personally, I’d like to see them restrict life loss to just self-damaging abilities (e.g. “Pay N life” triggers) so they can’t be avoided and use damage for offensive stuff.
EDIT: To elaborate, recurring damage from creatures is the second best way to win the mirror match (the first is winning the die roll), so if you’re able to efficiently remove them, it helps swing things in your favour. It also helps in most other creature aggro matchups as well.
I’m curious about this line that you took. Was the Meddling Mage pumped up to 3 health? If you just bolted face then your 2/3 Swiftspear would eat the mage anyway. Why bolt it in response to blocks? I’m assuming it was since you noted the Noble Hierarch was pumped up as well.
Even if it was a 3/3, it seems like it would have been better to Spike before combat to put him at 5 and make your Swiftspear a 2/3, then when he blocked, you could bolt face and eat the mage for free. Board state ends up the same but you put him at 2 and give yourself a lot more outs on your top deck. Even if he decided to block with the Hierarch instead, you’d just hold bolt to give yourself more options on their turn. In this case, you could hit the mage when the other one is on the stack next turn (since he’d likely name either that or Searing Blaze) or still go face and hope for other top decks depending on what spells you’ve already used.
I’ve been seriously considering switching back to a 1/3 Lavamancer/Skullcrack split in the MB as well rather than the 2/2 split I’ve been running. Burn has sort of taken over as the most prominent aggro deck again, so everyone seems to be running a bunch of maindeck life gain now. I even ran into a mill deck running Crypt Incursion and Extirpate naming Skullcrack yesterday. Still managed to win in 3 but I wasn’t expecting to see that in game 1.
I’m not sure I’d run them main board over Skullcrack but I could see it maybe being possible if your local meta has less main deck life gain.
Also, using Skullcrack to force damage through to protection from red creatures after they’ve blocked is another one that can be handy at times. Can come up in mirror matches with Kor Firewalker or against Affinity with Etched Champion.
That looks like a solid core to start with. If your budget is able to stretch a little more, I’d recommend picking up the fourth Inspiring Vantage, a third Searing Blood, two Deflecting Palms, two Kor Firewalkers, one (or two) Shard Volley and a playset of Smash to Smithereens to give yourself a little bit of extra flexibility to adjust to the meta. Those additions are pretty inexpensive overall for how many more options they’ll provide. You should definitely just jam a few games with your current 75 first though just to make sure you enjoy the play style.
Just to make your initial 75 cheaper and equally effective, you could even just replace the third Lavamancer with a third Searing Blood. I think you’d really want to be running 12 fetches if you’re going to play 3 Lavamancers.
I originally dismissed it purely as an anti-control card, which I don’t think we really need (I am firmly of the opinion that if you’re having a hard time vs control as Burn, you’re probably just not being patient enough; counter spells are relatively easy to play around by pulsing damage and control decks in Modern still need to tap out at some point to deploy threats). But realizing its potential as just another Burn spell that deals 4 damage has really changed my opinion on it. I’m finding it really makes sideboarding against combo decks a lot easier too, e.g. Titanshift where we want to take out 4 Searing Blaze but really only want to being in 2-3 Path of Exile (As an aside, It directly won me the game against a TS opponent the other day as a top deck while they were at 4 health and had their Valakut combo set up to go off the next turn). The card also serving as an anti-control tool is more of an added bonus for me now rather than the main reason I run it.
Kor Firewalker is too narrow and I detest Deflecting Palm. Exquisite Firecraft is the best card I’ve found for that two card flex spot in my SB and I think it’s going to end up being a staple for me in an open meta going forward (I still run Firewalkers locally due to a higher percentage of Burn).