[Deck] 44-card Foom (FFF)

[Finn]

Ever notice that Burn looks like it should be bitchin good, but so often seems to need just a little something to get it over the hump? I may have found it. Maybe. Initial testing is promising, though it is very preliminary. You cut the deck down to only the best burn spells, and stop at 44 cards.

4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Fireblast
4 Chain of Plasma
4 Magma Jet
4 Incinerate
2 Flamebreak
4 Thunderbolt
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
10 Mountain

Proposed sideboard:
4 Price of Progress
2 Flamebreak
2 Anarchy
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
2 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Pyrostatic Pillar

8 Fetchlands and 8 Baubles makes it 16 cards less, in essence - sort of a quasi 9-Land Stompy approach. Sure you don't get the extra card until the following turn with Baubles, but there are currently 24 instants. That gives a very good chance at that extra upkeep not mattering at all. Plus, the interaction between Fetchlands and Mishra's Bauble is essentially an Opt. For red, that's excellent deck manipulation for the cost of zero mana.

The only downside I can see is an occasional curse when Solidarity goes off and you are waiting for the next upkeep to foom his face (and dying first) or if the opponent is playing Stifle. Well, I have already tested both of these. And, it was a small enough hassle that I am posting the deck.

I don't know what the best Burn build is, but 44-card goldfished more than half a turn earlier in 20 test games each with the 12 least desirable burn cards (with an eye towards instants) and 4 lands removed in favor of the 16 deck shorteners.

I can see the possibility of 4 Land Grant with some Taigas, but that seems like going a little too far, since traditional Burn, like Solidarity, has the advantage of creating dead cards.

Anyway, where can this go?

[parallax]

I like the concept. Using Baubles to play a 52 card deck is interesting, and burn is one of the best decks to take advantage of it. For the record, fetchlands don't really decrease your deck size the way Baubles do. I'm not sure if they warrant inclusion as you have little need for a shuffle effect.

Would Great Furnace plus the Baubles be enough to run some Shrapnel Blasts?

[Maveric78f]

I would play :
-2*Fireblast
-2*Flamebreak
+4*Shrapnel Blast
-4*Mountain
+4*artifact land producing R

Shrapnel is good with baubles...

[CleverPetriDish]

Plus, the interaction between Fetchlands and Mishra's Bauble is essentially an Opt. For red, that's excellent deck manipulation for the cost of zero mana.

I guess you missed that. The shuffle effect is of supreme importance. And finally, a burn deck that actually CAN use Shrapnel Blast and not suck, but at the expense of Fireblast. I don't think I agree with that.

[Tacosnape]

Why Chain of Awful over, say, Thunderbolt or more Flamebreaks? Or the aforementioned Shrapnel Blast?

[parallax]

I guess you missed that. The shuffle effect is of supreme importance. And finally, a burn deck that actually CAN use Shrapnel Blast and not suck, but at the expense of Fireblast. I don't think I agree with that.

Mishra's Bauble plus fetchland is hardly excellent deck manipulation. It might be worth it. I don't know. Are you willing to Shock yourself every game for the possibility of shuffling one card away? It's not like Brainstorm where you're significantly improving your hand.

Shrapnel Blast wouldn't have to be at the expense of Fireblast. You would still be running 14 Mountains (or pseudo-Mountains). I might not run a full four Shrapnel Blast.

[scrumdogg]

Because it is 3 damage for 2 as an instant that your opponent is occassionally stupid enough to send back and has no conditional modifiers. Flamebreak is there strictly for the Goblin matchup, but it is a necessary evil. Fireblast always works, since you have mountains, while Shrapnel Blast is a conditional spell.

[dahcmai]

No price of progress?

Otherwise, I like it, seems like a good idea. I'll give it a shot later.

[Eldariel]

With Magma Jet in the deck, you can still run both, Blast and Blast even with 4 Furnaces in the deck. I personally liked the Bauble-plan, but I didn't want to add more than 4 Baubles, since there's the risk you draw into additional Baubles off the first Bauble, screwing you up royally, so 8 seems a tad bit too many. Also, fetchlands obviously don't have a real relevance regarding the decksize, perhaps dropping 1 card on average (so you're playing with a 51-card deck instead of a 44-card one).

But yea, if I were to run 8 Baubles, 4 Furnaces and 3-4 Blasts seems natural. Also, I've found Fork to be way better than people make it out to be as long as you don't draw multiples, so 1-2 Forks seems pretty natural.

[Tacosnape]

Because it is 3 damage for 2 as an instant that your opponent is occassionally stupid enough to send back and has no conditional modifiers.

And if you have no cards in hand or are losing the damage race, Chain of Plasma is awful.

Since we've got eight fetchlands and eight free cantrips, why aren't we grabbing Plateaus and splashing white in this for Lightning Helix, since the manabase could easily support it and the lifegain of Helix offsets the pain of the fetchlands?

EDIT: The biggest problem burn has, to me, is that many burn spells are anti-synergistic. Price of Progress is anti-synergistic with Lightning Helix. Shrapnel Blast is anti-synergistic with Fireblast. Etc.

[Volt]

And if you have no cards in hand or are losing the damage race, Chain of Plasma is awful.

Since we've got eight fetchlands and eight free cantrips, why aren't we grabbing Plateaus and splashing white in this for Lightning Helix, since the manabase could easily support it and the lifegain of Helix offsets the pain of the fetchlands?

I was thinking the same exact thing.

-2 Mountain
-4 Chain of Plasma
+2 Plateau
+4 Lightning Helix

Other than that, this seems pretty solid. The Bauble idea is pretty nifty. I would pass on the Shrapnel Blast idea, though.

[scrumdogg]

And if you have no cards in hand or are losing the damage race, Chain of Plasma is awful.

Since we've got eight fetchlands and eight free cantrips, why aren't we grabbing Plateaus and splashing white in this for Lightning Helix, since the manabase could easily support it and the lifegain of Helix offsets the pain of the fetchlands?

EDIT: The biggest problem burn has, to me, is that many burn spells are anti-synergistic. Price of Progress is anti-synergistic with Lightning Helix. Shrapnel Blast is anti-synergistic with Fireblast. Etc.

It is difficult to lose a damage race with a properly built & played Burn deck. But I agree that Lightning Helix would be strictly better than Chain of Plasma, as long as you accept that the deck is now vulnerable to Wasteland, a card which the deck previously ignored, scornfully. Splashing white also allows Disenchant from the SB for those times you need it (COP Red, Aegis of Honor, Solitary Confinement, etc). Price of Progress definitely has a place main or side in any burn deck, so what if you take damage off a Plateau? You take 2, the opponent takes 4-6 is a trade a burn deck will make all day long. Burn is very close to the old Sui school of thought, the only life point which matters is the last one.

[Tacosnape]

Price of Progress definitely has a place main or side in any burn deck, so what if you take damage off a Plateau? You take 2, the opponent takes 4-6 is a trade a burn deck will make all day long.

This is a very good point. What I should have said was that I think the inclusion of Helix/Plateau might be enough to relegate Price to SB, rather than main, especially with Solidarity everywhere nowadays.

EDIT: Since everyone seems to agree math-wise that the Baubles make this a 52-card deck, rather than a 44 one, we should rename this to 52-Card Pickup.

[scrumdogg]

This is a very good point. What I should have said was that I think the inclusion of Helix/Plateau might be enough to relegate Price to SB, rather than main, especially with Solidarity everywhere nowadays.

EDIT: Since everyone seems to agree math-wise that the Baubles make this a 52-card deck, rather than a 44 one, we should rename this to 52-Card Pickup.

Heh, nice deck name (and if hasn't been said, Finn, neat deck). Price forces Solidarity to pop their fetches on your schedule, not theirs (minor point, I admit) Game 1 and is easily sided out for whatever blue/combo hate you play Game 2. Even with Solidarity rising in popularity, what percentage do you realistically expect to see at a tournament? Enough to sideboard a card as good as PoP? Oh, and your lifeloss with PoP versus Solidarity is irrelevant :)

[bigbear102]

-4 shock
+4 Flame Rift

I know it's not an Instant, but it's just a hell of a lot better.....


-2-4 Chain of Plasma
+2-4 Price

It's just that good....

Add in the other Flamebreaks for the 4th flame rift or one of the prices/chains or any other card you don't like, maybe a couple of the baubles, cuz 8 does seem like a lot. Flamebreak also does deal 3 damage to the head.

[Finn]

Since everyone seems to agree math-wise that the Baubles make this a 52-card deck, rather than a 44 one, we should rename this to 52-Card Pickup.

I'm not so sure.
At the time of your opening draw, the deck is not 44. However, since you are accelerating the cards out of the library (using baubles), it quickly becomes smaller. In a typical 60-card deck, the 8 fetchlands may not impact it so much, but when the deck is effectively only 52 cards to begin with, it makes you draw and sac them faster than usual. So you don't draw Eldariel's estimate of one per game. In my testing, I found myself tearing through fetchlands, no fewer than 3 per game I would estimate. The bottom line is that the end result is an ever-increasing chance of drawing more foom as the match progresses.

The fact that this thinning process actually creates deck manipulation as well is what makes it work, though.

With so few mountains, I don't think I like Shrapnel Blast This is especially true when you consider that the baubles need to be sacced to get the extra card. This needs to be tested, though.

Anybody want to recommend a sidboard? I figure that's where PoP will go.

EDIT: I suppose I should mention that I found myself pleased with a Bauble every time. I would use 12 if there were more. Too bad there were only two brothers.

[parallax]

I agree with the maximum number of baubles. They really have no significant drawback as long as your deck is sufficiently instant-ized (and doesn't try to draw cards on your opponent's turn). The only situation where bauble hurts you is you topdeck the bauble, pop it and draw: a land that you needed; sorcery speed burn that you needed to cast this turn, or another bauble.

I think that the deck-thinning/library-manipulation benefits of fetchlands are greatly exaggerated. You do realize you are Lightning Bolting yourself every game, right? I would only run fetchlands if I wanted to splash white for Disenchant, in which case I would also run Lightning Helix.

I think the two extra damage from Shrapnel Blast over Chain of Plasma or whatever would be worth losing a random card from the top of your deck. A card from the top of your deck is worth an average of two damage, but costs more mana. I don't know if its worth it or not but it seems to be worth testing. I don't think you're likely to hurt Fireblast too much by running four non-Mountains.

With eight baubles, you can probably afford to run fewer lands than normal burn decks. Have you considered cutting one or two lands for more burn? How has your mana been in testing?

[Finn]

I think that the deck-thinning/library-manipulation benefits of fetchlands are greatly exaggerated. You do realize you are Lightning Bolting yourself every game, right? I would only run fetchlands if I wanted to splash white for Disenchant, in which case I would also run Lightning Helix.

Exaggerated, maybe. Frankly I don't really know how to numerically guage the effectiveness of thinning with fetchlands (except via goldfish numbers, which is very indirect). That bugs me a bit. But anecdotally, it seems to be very good. I don't have a particular problem with losing life from my own fetchlands. It's a freaking burn deck! Splashing just seems to get in the way, imo.

With eight baubles, you can probably afford to run fewer lands than normal burn decks. Have you considered cutting one or two lands for more burn? How has your mana been in testing?
It was good. I was happy with it. I just took a guess at the number of mountains though.

[Tinefol]

Deck gets threshold pretty fast, so I suggest perhaps adding 2-3 Barbarian rings. After all, what kind of mountain would ever deal 2 damage?

[MattH]

Ever notice that Burn looks like it should be bitchin good
No.

P.S. Shock is garbage.

[No_Life_No_Future]

How about adding burning wish and a wishboard? I used to play a burn deck and it pissed me off when i kept losing to white 1st game, so i ran 4 wishes usually getting anarchy.

What about:
browbeat
cursed scroll

I would rather run more flamebreaks... and less shock/chain of plasma

I like the bauble concept, I used to run 4 in my control deck... (before fetches)

[Phantom]

This is actually such a good idea that I'm angry i didn't think of it first, lol.

I think I'm firmly in the Shrapnel Blast and white splash camps. Helix is too good not to run, and Shrapnel Blast might push this decks fundemental turn up a half turn.

You asked for board help, I'm assuming it would run:

Pyrostatic Pillar
Red Elemental Blast (maybe?)
Price of Progress
Disenchant

[Tacosnape]

You asked for board help, I'm assuming it would run:

Pyrostatic Pillar
Red Elemental Blast (maybe?)
Price of Progress
Disenchant

Actually, I see no reason not to have Pithing Needle in this board somewhere, given that we're running Shrapnel Blast. The build I've been testing is running:

3 Price of Progress (I have one maindecked currently.)
3 Sirocco (Die, Solidarity!)
3 Pithing Needle
3 Disenchant
3 Pyrostatic Pillar

The logic behind my 3/3/3/3/3 is that it's not as hard to hit a copy when you run eight free cantrips. Truth be told I'm not sold on Disenchant yet, even with the white splash, and there's a possibility I'll cut it. Needle solves Disenchant's two biggest problems thus far, Umezawa's Jitte and Rune of Protection: Red. Disenchant does hit Confinement, but meh. Price of Progress gets around Confinement decks just fine.

By the way, I agree with Matt. Shock blows. So does Browbeat. 2 for 1 isn't enough without something else attached, and quite often that 3 you draw after Browbeat you may not have time to cast in a damage race.

Here's what I'm running at the moment.

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Helix
4 Magma Jet
3 Fireblast (I cut to 3 since I kept hitting 2-3 copies with Cantrip Baubles.)
3 Flamebreak
2 Shrapnel Blast
1 Price of Progress
1 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Wooded Feethills
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Great Furnace
4 Plateau
3 Mountain

I'm still not sure I'm head over heels about Shrapnel Blast either, but it's great when it works. I'm contemplating sticking Sonic Burst in the deck to pitch the occasional useless Shrapnel/Price/Land

[scrumdogg]

The problem is that you've now bastardized your manabase for a 2 of...that makes no sense to me. Opening yourself to Waste etc, and denying yourself Price of Progress, which is one of your better cards versus Gro (which is a HARD matchup & one of the reasons Burn isn't considered a higher tier.

[Phantom]

Needle solves Disenchant's two biggest problems thus far, Umezawa's Jitte and Rune of Protection: Red. Disenchant does hit Confinement, but meh. Price of Progress gets around Confinement decks just fine.

I agree that needle is solid here, but it doesn't deal with Worship. Flamebreak can hit the 'Goose, but burn runs 4 while they run 7 hard counters and even more cantrips.

[Tacosnape]

Okay, so some of each on Needle/Disenchant? Or just cut Shrapnel Blast altogether? Scrum's right, unfortunately. You can't run Shrapnel Blast AND Lightning Helix to their maximum efficiency and still have Price of Progress, and I'd rather have Price for face-ownage than Shrapnel.

I cut Furnace for basic Mountains and Shrapnel/Flames for a fourth Flamebreak and 2 Sonic Burst, which is proving pretty decent for that speed 5-damage shot.

Without Shrapnel, I'm not sure Needle's still worth it over Disenchant, unless people start running that stupid Gain 15 life martyr guy out of Coldsnap, which someone did against me earlier. Gragh.

[iOWN]

Very cool idea.

I'm not sold on the Shrapnel Blasts; really you are forcing them in by adding artifacts because the original 8 would not be a high enough amount to run it. Also if you add Artifact Lands or Duals, your PoPs become much less effective.

No one seems to be hitting the Burn selection in the right place. I would do something like this:

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
4 Incinerate
4 Flame Rift
3 Fireblast
2 Price of Progress
3 Flamebreak
4 Magma Jet

8 Baubles

8 Fetchlands
10 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring

Sideboard:

2 PoP
4 Sirocco
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Red Elemental Blast?
2 Pyrokinesis?

Baubles and Fetchlands make Threshold a whole ton faster, so Barbarian Ring is a really good idea.

[Eldariel]

Very cool idea.

I'm not sold on the Shrapnel Blasts; really you are forcing them in by adding artifacts because the original 8 would not be a high enough amount to run it. Also if you add Artifact Lands or Duals, your PoPs become much less effective.

No one seems to be hitting the Burn selection in the right place. I would do something like this:

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
4 Incinerate
4 Flame Rift
3 Fireblast
2 Price of Progress
3 Flamebreak
4 Magma Jet

8 Baubles

8 Fetchlands
10 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring

Sideboard:

2 PoP
4 Sirocco
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Red Elemental Blast?
2 Pyrokinesis?

Baubles and Fetchlands make Threshold a whole ton faster, so Barbarian Ring is a really good idea.

20 lands and 8 Baubles=manaflood. There's no way you should run over 18 lands with 8 Baubles, since you can't really control what you draw off the Baubles too well (except for some Mishra's Mind Tricks). Add to that the fact that you're running Magma Jet and you could get away with much lower landcount.

[Rastadon]

Nah, you need the scry ability to get your finishing spells. If you use it for mana that's just pitiful.

[parallax]

17 lands seems pretty safe given the Baubles. And if you're using Magma Jet to find lands, it's pretty safe to assume your hand is already full of burn.

[Eldariel]

Nah, you need the scry ability to get your finishing spells. If you use it for mana that's just pitiful.

If you use it for mana, it probably means you kept a manalight hand, which means that you have your finishing spells in hand already.

[Finn]

I think that if you stick with the 18 lands I suggested, then perhaps Shock would be better as Thunderbolt. If you go to 17, then Shock is probably the better fit in that spot.

Remember folks, try to keep the burn at instant speed. And I think I would avoid Flame Rift anyway since you are likely to sac 2 to 4 fetchlands per game as well. And the more I think about it, the more I do not like Barbarian Ring. It's not just the damage either, it is the fact that it gives you even fewer Mountains. And since Fireblast is just absurdly good, (and the whole idea behind the deck is to only use the best burn) you don't want to have anything get in the way of the best spells working. The same goes for Shrapnel Blast, I am afraid. It's good, but not worth losing consistency for IMO.

[iOWN]

I think that if you stick with the 18 lands I suggested, then perhaps Shock would be better as Thunderbolt. If you go to 17, then Shock is probably the better fit in that spot.

Remember folks, try to keep the burn at instant speed. And I think I would avoid Flame Rift anyway since you are likely to sac 2 to 4 fetchlands per game as well. And the more I think about it, the more I do not like Barbarian Ring. It's not just the damage either, it is the fact that it gives you even fewer Mountains. And since Fireblast is just absurdly good, (and the whole idea behind the deck is to only use the best burn) you don't want to have anything get in the way of the best spells working. The same goes for Shrapnel Blast, I am afraid. It's good, but not worth losing consistency for IMO.

Using two - four fetchlands has nothing to do with Flame Rift. In most games, you'll be dealing damage much faster than the opponent, and four extra damage to you isn't going to put your life below theirs. Flame Rift is an essential to burn, much MUCH better than Shock, which doesn't even deal 3 damage. The only time it would ever be subobtimal is in the Goblin matchup.

[Arctic_Slicer]

Okay I see some of you guys adding things like disenchant, pithing needle, and lightning helix to the deck; all fine cards but I really don't think they belong in this deck. This is a burn deck and it's only goal is to reduce the opponents life total from 20 to 0 as soon as possible. Sure lighting helix helps with this but it isn't worth splashing white for. Red has plenty of spells that deal that same ammount of damage for the same casting cost or less.

Also since we are running baubles for the cantriping effect we need them to have a more instant heavy burn deck with the exception of the very awesome lava spike and chain lightning it is probabally better to leave all other sorceries out if we can. There is a good case for sorceries such as browbeat, flamebreak, and flame rift; but I think we are better off leaving those out in favor of more instances. Flamebreak can be sideboard deck versus heavy aggro matchups but I wouldn't main deck anymore sorceries than you have to. I think 18 lands and 8 baubles is probabally about right and if we are including shrapnel blast the land count will be something like 14 mountain and 4 great furnace. Add in your 8 sorceries of lava spike and chain lightning we have room for 26 instants. The obvious inclusions are playsets of lightning bolt, incinerate, magma jet, and thunderbolt. Then you probabally want about 3 fireblasts and if we are going for shrapnel blast you probabally want 3 of those as well leaving you 4 slots open for one fiinal spell. I see some of you trying shock, while it's not bad for one mana it may as well be kindle because the cantriping might make it possible to see that second or third one more often than you would otherwise. You could also try chain of plasma.

Anyway let's get a deck list up.

52 card pickup by Arctic_Slicer:

14 Mountain
04 Great Furnace

04 Mishra's Bauble
04 Urza's Bauble

04 Lava Spike
04 Chain lightning

04 Lightning Bolt
04 Thunderbolt
04 Magamajet
04 Incinerate
04 Kindle
03 Fireblast
03 Shrapnel Blast

Sideboard

04 Price of Progress
04 Flamebreak
04 Cryoclasm
03 Mountain

With the exception of the Kindles I think the maindeck is a pretty solid. I am not sure I am entirely sold on the baubles but they might just be what burn needs to actually be competetive.

The sideboard is obviously a work in progress. With the exception of Price of progress I really don't know what is actually worth including in the side. Flamebreak can be good versus heavy aggro matchups and included it there for lack of something better. Ditto with Cryoclasm; it might be good versus high tide type decks as it can attack their precious islands without losing site of your goal but not really sure if it's sideboard material.

Anyway theres my 25cents.

[ACE]

Ever notice that Burn looks like it should be bitchin good, but so often seems to need just a little something to get it over the hump? I may have found it. Maybe. Initial testing is promising, though it is very preliminary. You cut the deck down to only the best burn spells, and stop at 44 cards.

4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Fireblast
4 Chain of Plasma
4 Magma Jet
4 Incinerate
2 Flamebreak
4 Shock
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
10 Mountain

8 Fetchlands and 8 Baubles makes it 16 cards less, in essence - sort of a quasi 9-Land Stompy approach. Sure you don't get the extra card until the following turn with Baubles, but there are currently 24 instants. That gives a very good chance at that extra upkeep not mattering at all. Plus, the interaction between Fetchlands and Mishra's Bauble is essentially an Opt. For red, that's excellent deck manipulation for the cost of zero mana.

The only downside I can see is an occasional curse when Solidarity goes off and you are waiting for the next upkeep to foom his face (and dying first) or if the opponent is playing Stifle. Well, I have already tested both of these. And, it was a small enough hassle that I am posting the deck.

I don't know what the best Burn build is, but 44-card goldfished more than half a turn earlier in 20 test games each with the 12 least desirable burn cards (with an eye towards instants) and 4 lands removed in favor of the 16 deck shorteners.

I can see the possibility of 4 Land Grant with some Taigas, but that seems like going a little too far, since traditional Burn, like Solidarity, has the advantage of creating dead cards.

Anyway, where can this go?


I have always been a fan of divining top in burn decks. It lets you effectivly keep the land out of your hand, as well as giving you the better burn. Also, it has synergies with the baubles, because you will be able to draw what you want out of the top 3-6 (depending if you have a fetch in play).

And, i would use cursed scroll or grim lavamancer over shock (scroll > mancer because of flamebreak). Even browbeat would be better, because it nets you 3 cards, or they take 5 fearing that you will turn up some vicious burn.

[Tacosnape]

Okay I see some of you guys adding things like disenchant, pithing needle, and lightning helix to the deck; all fine cards but I really don't think they belong in this deck. This is a burn deck and it's only goal is to reduce the opponents life total from 20 to 0 as soon as possible.

Blah blah blah

04 Kindle


That's probably enough said right there, but let's go a little more.

1. Lightning Helix deals 3 for 2 mana. Kindle deals 2. If you draw double copies, Helix does 6 for 4, Kindle does 5 for 4. If you draw TRIPLE copies, Helix does 9 for 6, as does Kindle. You have to draw four for Kindle to be better than Helix EVEN IF YOU IGNORE THE LIFEGAIN. Kindle is way worse than Helix. Or Chain of Plasma. Or Thunderbolt. Or every random bad instant 2 for 3 spell ever. Kindle is even worse than Shock. Kindle might even be worse than Guerrilla Tactics. And Flare. And...um...(goes and looks up a bad burn card to make an absurd comparison to Kindle)...Feedback Bolt. With Baubles. Mad tech, right there.

2. Burn HAS to run Disenchant or Needle or something of the sort somewhere, because, as you said, its only strategy is to reduce your opponent's life total to 0 ASAP. There's 5 bajillion random aggro decks that pack Jitte, including even some random builds of Goblins, and if counters get on a Jitte and you can't stop it, you lose. Period. Not to mention, Loam Confinement has Solitary Confinement, and Rifter has Rune of Protection: Red. Needle and Disenchant don't have to damage the opponent. They're there to save your strategy from failing miserably. That's why they're in board and the things that DO damage your opponent are maindecked.

3. Cryoclasm isn't worth it. Run Sirocco. Give yourself a fighting chance against Solidarity.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Has Lodestone Bauble been considered? Its 1 mana more to use, so it seems doubtful that it will be useful. But if you use them then you could make what amounts to a 40 card deck + baubles and fetches. Is it possible that the crappiness of Lodestone Bauble could be offset by the quality of the 40 cards?

[Poron]

I'm a strong believer :look: of B/w Burn Deck! I crosspost you the final list we reached after 2 pages of test some weeks ago.

3 Wooded Foothils
4 Bloodstained Mire
10 Mountain
2 Plateau

4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Flames of the Blood Hand (life recover hate, perhaps Sulfuric Vortex has to be tested)
4 Lightning Helix
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Flamebreak
4 Magma Jet
4 Fireblast
1 Disenchant (to have 4 by main once sided..)

sb:
3 Disenchant
4 Pyrostatic Pillar (our only hope against solidarity and storm decks)
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pithing Needle

this is a good list.. quite often win. So if you want to have a burn deck take it into account :D (forgive my bad english)

[noobslayer]

We're focusing on a build with 8 free baubles to thin the deck quickly into business spells. I may not be a mod, but I think that your deck list belongs in the generic burn thread.

[SuckerPunch]

Are there any goldfishing results you guys have to report?

Does it win usually on the fourth turn like a good burn list should?

[Cavius The Great]

Has anyone suggested Barbarian Ring as a 4 of? It seems rather sexy with baubles that fill your graveyard. :wink:

[SuckerPunch]

P.S. Shock is garbage.

QFT.

This was a great idea Finn. But you really need to update your original list with better cards.



-4 shock
+4 Flame Rift

I know it's not an Instant, but it's just a hell of a lot better.....


-2-4 Chain of Plasma
+2-4 Price

It's just that good....

Add in the other Flamebreaks for the 4th flame rift or one of the prices/chains or any other card you don't like, maybe a couple of the baubles, cuz 8 does seem like a lot. Flamebreak also does deal 3 damage to the head.


And if you have no cards in hand or are losing the damage race, Chain of Plasma is awful.

Since we've got eight fetchlands and eight free cantrips, why aren't we grabbing Plateaus and splashing white in this for Lightning Helix, since the manabase could easily support it and the lifegain of Helix offsets the pain of the fetchlands?


All great pieces of advise that I think you should edit into your original list.

IMO, Spark Elemental also isn't that horrible, but I guess he's not an instant either so there's no point in running him.

52 Card Pick Up is a far better name too IMO.

P.S. There's one way to not cut mountains or fireblasts but still support the awesome finisher that is Shrapnel Blast.

4 Ankh of Mishra. You may possibly have to cut a few fetchlands but that opt ability isn't that common anyways. It only works with Mishra's Bauble and you don't always have a choice between dropping a basic or a fetchland after a Bauble. Honestly though, I'm not sure cutting fetchlands is needed. When you cast Ankh, you already played your second land.

Every good deck but solidarity runs fetchlands, and most opponents seem to prefer dropping their basic lands first out of fear of Wastelands. So a second turn Ankh would make every fetchland they play deal 5 damage. Even without fetchlands, it usually deals 2 damage a turn. Then during their fourth turn after their land drop, you sac it to Shrapnel Blast and finish them off with a Fireblast.

Here's my proposed list...

52 Card Pick Up

09 Mountain - May run 4 Plateau and 4 Lightning Helix instead.
04 Bloodstained Mire - May cut these fetchlands for the sake of Ankh.
04 Wooded Foothills

04 Mishra's Bauble
04 Urza's Bauble

04 Lava Spike
04 Chain lightning

04 Lightning Bolt
04 Magma Jet
04 Price of Progress
04 Fireblast
04 Flame Rift/Incinerate - Flame Rift if you cut the fetchlands, Incinerate if you don't
03 Shrapnel Blast - The second best finisher in the game
04 Ankh of Mishra - Owns every deck but solidarity, lets you run Shrapnel Blast without weakening Fireblast. I'm not sure cutting fetchlands is needed. When you cast Ankh, you already played your second fetchland, so unless you topdeck one more, you won't need to worry about Ankh's disadvantage.

[Mirrislegend]

@ SuckerPunch:
First, you mean Plateau, not Taiga. Unless, of course, one is able to cast a Lightning Helix off of a Taiga and a Mountain. If so, please forward the memo noting this change.

Second, while your ideas have their merits, I think you're losing the idea of the deck: to be running as few cards as possible. Your ideas belong more in the burn thread, as an addendum to someone bringing up thinning the deck using baubles and large amounts of fetches

[SuckerPunch]

I fixed the Tiaga typo.

I don't quite understand your post.

The deck still runs 8 Baubles. This isn't traditional burn by anymeans.

The only changes I've made to it are adding Ankh and Shrapnel Blast for those situations where you topdeck a Bauble, don't have or can't be sure that you have an instant on top, and want to win that same turn. Even if you do have an instant on top, waiting to win till your opponents upkeep, after they untapped their lands, is risky if they could be running counterspells.

[Finn]

For the sake of a correctness I edited the opening post (albet only slightly). It almost seems silly to discuss the merits of burn_spell_a vs. burn_spell_b in this thread when it is going on in the strait burn thread as well, but at a closer look, there are a few decisions that are easier in here simply due to the necessity of a high number of instants.

In short, I am personally unconvinced of the advantages of the following offshoots:

Shrapnel Blast: sure Baubles make great free artifacts to sacrifice, but that means you are now spending two cards to deal 5 damage instead of one. Sacrificing a Great Furnace is a far better option when possible, but you know that as soon as you add them in, you will have 3 Fireblasts in your opening draw the next time you shuffle up.

Ankh of Mishra: An excellent damage-dealer, and certainly worth more consideration, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making you give a rat's ass about what defensive cards your opponent is holding. And it will kill you from time to time versus decks of the Pikula variety. And it is crappy after turn 4 or so. I like my foom without strings attached. Ankh comes with thick cables. And it is not instant speed. Bad with Baubles.

Shock: see ya. I replaced them with Thunderbolts. A build with Shock maybe possible, but then you should cut the lands by one. Still, most folks seem to think it is not good enough. I agree.

Anything else not instant speed has to go. The Baubles are really handy at making sure you always get the good stuff, but it is common enough to really need the goods before you untap that this is a strong requirement.


BTW, it does goldfish about a 1/2 turn faster. But it is a bit more susceptible to defense. What's your choice - speed or reliability?

[rufus]

A little thread necro, but it seems like we could revisit this concept.

To supplement Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble as free cycling cards, WotC has printed "mana free cyclers" in the form of Street Wraith,Gitaxian Probe,Edge of Autumn and Manamorphose.

There is now a larger library of burn-friendly creatures. Notably Monastery Swiftspear,Goblin Guide, and Eidolon of the Great Revel are now burn staples.

Damage dealing instants, on the other hand, don't seem to have seen much improvement. One option to explore might be playing for Thunderous Wrath with Spark Jolt and Magma Jet as well as Mishra's Bauble.

Cycling through lots of cards has solid synergy with Barbarian Ring, and it should help balance the split between burn spells and lands.

Since so many of the quality damage dealers are sorcery speed, it probably makes more sense to simply wait out the bauble draws.

So let's look at a potential list:


4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose

4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
3 Price of Progress
3 Fireblast

2 Barbarian Ring
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
8 Mountain


I'm not sure what the best method for goldfishing is. Since burn is a relatively simple concept I was contemplating coding up a monte-carlo simulator.

[Kanti]

I would be really inclined to include some Grapeshot action in there.

[rufus]

I would be really inclined to include some Grapeshot action in there.

I don't think the storm counts will get that high, and spot removal is a detour from the primary game plan. Though the suggestion does make me whether Storm Entity can perform comparably to swiftspear.

[square_two]

I don't think the storm counts will get that high, and spot removal is a detour from the primary game plan. Though the suggestion does make me whether Storm Entity can perform comparably to swiftspear.

I wonder if replacing Goblin Guide with that would work. Or some sort of split - sort of a prowess/storm burn.

T1 -> land, swiftspear, bauble/probe -> 2 damage
T2 -> land, bauble/probe, manamorphose, storm entity -> 6 damage

And by then you have a good grip of burn spells.

[rufus]

I wonder if replacing Goblin Guide with that would work. ...

Goblin Guide is really good in my goldfishing. I put storm entity in the price of progress slot, though I may want to remove some rift bolts.

I'm also seeing finishes on turn 2-5 in my testing. I really want to automate that goldfishing.

[Gheizen64]

I think a Cabal Therapy and black splash would be really nice here, along with pyromancer. Sure you lose some speed, but Therapy + Pyromancer+ 8 baubles + goblin guide + probe is a lot of information you basically can't miss those therapies. This is a preliminary list i've been trying:


Free cyclers:
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe

Burn:
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lava Spike
2 Fireblast
4 Chain Lightning


Creatures and discard:
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Dark Confidant

2 Barbarian Ring
4 Badlands
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa

Side
2 Price of Progress
4 Pithing Needle
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
3 Dread of Night


It's too bad that Pyro unlike Mentor don't trigger off artifacts, that'd be so good welp.

[rufus]

I think a Cabal Therapy and black splash would be really nice here, along with pyromancer. Sure you lose some speed, but Therapy + Pyromancer+ 8 baubles + goblin guide + probe is a lot of information you basically can't miss those therapies. ...

This is moving away from burn, but doesn't Manamorphose fit better with young pyromancer than the baubles do?

[Gheizen64]

This is moving away from burn, but doesn't Manamorphose fit better with young pyromancer than the baubles do?

Probably. Also, i've been trying the abbot of Keral Keep, and i've found him to be a nice card. I've been playing it in place of Goblin Guide which i found not too sinergistic if you aren't actually trying to win on T3. A lot of the times the flipped card miss, but prowess is such a strong ability in this format.

[hotlikedimes]

how about a blue splash for dtt? Manamorphose helps with the color commitment, and you could just run some amount of volcs for consistency. Drop some amount of either goblin guides or probes. Gonna be a ton of cards in the yard from everything, so something to do with them would be sweet. Or go super over the top and play temporal trespass and get immediate value from all the baubles.

[rufus]

how about a blue splash for dtt? Manamorphose helps with the color commitment, and you could just run some amount of volcs for consistency. Drop some amount of either goblin guides or probes. Gonna be a ton of cards in the yard from everything, so something to do with them would be sweet. Or go super over the top and play temporal trespass and get immediate value from all the baubles.

Hmm... like some kind of RU delver deck? I think it makes the deck slower and the mana base more vulnerable. In some sense, the idea here is to produce really fast pressure so that decks that run more costly cantrips get punished for it.

[rufus]

On second thought, maybe Temporal Trespass can act like one more free cantrip, and Mind Bomb do double duty as a damage source and a delve enabler.

[Cire]

How about just do this? (15 lands should be enough following the math of 19 or 20 lands in a 60 card deck compared to X amount of Lands in a theoretical 44 card deck). Other than that I think it would just play like a burn deck that might occasionally go nuts with Monastery.

Prowess Burn


4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
3 Abbot of Keral Keep

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
2 Fireblast

4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe

15 Mountains

[Phoenix Ignition]

Eidolon is a great card and all but you're going to freakin blast yourself so hard with this. I don't think it's what you want to be using in a deck like this.

[rufus]

This list seems to goldfish on turn 3 (or turn 4 with Trespass) a lot.


4 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
11 Fetchland

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mind Bomb
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning

4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Goblin Guide

3 Temporal Trespass
3 Fireblast

4 Manamorphose
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe


I do think it's much less resilient than conventional burn lists.

[jrsthethird]

I want to see Mind Bomb in some Top 8s. Make it happen folks.

[rufus]

I want to see Mind Bomb in some Top 8s. Make it happen folks.

I'm conflicted about that card. It's terrible design, and yet I like it.

[jrsthethird]

I'm conflicted about that card. It's terrible design, and yet I like it.

Same here. The card didn't even make sense to me when I was 8 and first opened it. But then it grew on me.

[Gikkman]

So is it possible to apply a fork-effect to that Mind Bomb somehow :-D

[Finn]

Good god, Rufus. I love your take. That manabase is all ketchup and no fries - just the way I like it.

Also, I don't think you can use Eidolon and Swiftspear in the same deck.

[rufus]

Good god, Rufus. I love your take. That manabase is all ketchup and no fries - just the way I like it.

I have no idea what that means.

Counting the Temporal Trespass as a 'freetrip' the list is now down to 41 business cards.

Street Wraith is still available as a deck thinner to bring the list down even further, or could replace Urza's Bauble to make things *marginally* faster.

I'm wondering if there's a better testing program than just goldfishing.

[Gheizen64]

Do you cast the trespass consistently? 3 mana seems a lot for 17 lands, even with all the pseudo-cantrips.

[rufus]

Do you cast the trespass consistently? 3 mana seems a lot for 17 lands, even with all the pseudo-cantrips.

My list has 16 lands, and it seems to work pretty well.

Let's assume, for a moment, that there's no problem playing any of the 16 other cyclers before turn 3. So, on turn 3, on the play you've seen 10 of the 44 non-freetrip cards and have about an 80% chance to have drawn 3 lands, and on the draw it's around 86%. The improvement for going to 17 lands to 86% on the play and 89% on the draw. (I'm not sophisticated enough to have good insight, but it might make sense to tweak the land balance for on the play / on the draw games.)

Mulligans improve the odds a bit as well, but I'm too lazy to go through the math.

[hotlikedimes]

The biggest issue with modern burn, and legacy burn (since the lists are so close), is if you have 3 lands you're in bad shape cause you're missing out on dmg cards and you no card draw, but since there are 'cantrips' and manamorphose to generate double blue, the mana restrictions really aren't that gross, and even having 3 lands in your opener isn't as scary. Plus you can do all that main phase if the bauble shows the coast is clear, and then you can play out 1 or 2 baubles, manamorphose, and trespass and have a pretty big swiftspear in play.

[Xanthos]

What would be a good alternative to mind bomb? It's not on magic online for some reason…:frown:

[rufus]

What would be a good alternative to mind bomb? It's not on magic online for some reason…:frown:

Do you get the baubles? Rift Bolt is probably a superior choice in that slot, really.

[jrsthethird]

What would be a good alternative to mind bomb? It's not on magic online for some reason…:frown:

Because it's really really bad and pre-Mirage?

[Cire]

What would be a good alternative to mind bomb? It's not on magic online for some reason…:frown:

Bump in the night? Isn't that better? It's a black bolt and it's not like you're paying blue for probe.

[rufus]

Bump in the night? Isn't that better? It's a black bolt and it's not like you're paying blue for probe.

The problem is that temporal trespass really wants UUU. You could, I suppose, play 5-color lands, but I'm not sure how easy it is to feed delve with that.

[sun tzu]

with all of these 'free' spells hitting the graveyard, where is Tasigur, or the other delve monsters? you could even keep most of your creatures out of the maindeck, and side into tasigur, or angler. barbarian ring was also mentioned. i think that would be a fantastic addition since you should be able to turn it on fairly easily (although this fights the delve plan so pick one).

that blue delve card is the wrong direction, getting wayyy too cute.

[rufus]

with all of these 'free' spells hitting the graveyard, where is Tasigur, or the other delve monsters? you could even keep most of your creatures out of the maindeck, and side into tasigur, or angler. barbarian ring was also mentioned. i think that would be a fantastic addition since you should be able to turn it on fairly easily (although this fights the delve plan so pick one).

that blue delve card is the wrong direction, getting wayyy too cute.

Tassigur, The Golden Fang is a good card, but it requires black to cast and green or blue to activate, and that just doesn't fit here.

Of the 'delve monsters', Soulflayer is probably the best fit since it has a decent chance to get haste from eating a corpse. That does at least fit into a RB plan with Bump in the Night too.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'wayyy too cute'. The goal of the deck is to be consistently threatening a 3-4 turn finish. Even a strong value play like DTT isn't ideal for that game plan.

[Michael Keller]

This deck looks pretty sweet, actually.

[frafen]

The problem is that temporal trespass really wants UUU. You could, I suppose, play 5-color lands, but I'm not sure how easy it is to feed delve with that. What about final fortune? It's more mana efficent than trespass and if you aim to win on turn 3-4 anyway maybe the downside isn't that awful. Probably it isn't good enough but I would love to see final fortune working in a deck, it's one of my favorite card ever. :smile:

[rufus]

What about final fortune? It's more mana efficent than trespass and if you aim to win on turn 3-4 anyway maybe the downside isn't that awful. Probably it isn't good enough but I would love to see final fortune working in a deck, it's one of my favorite card ever. :smile:

They don't really work the same way. To play Final Fortune sensibly you must either have a clear line of play in mind, or be really desperate. Temporal Trespass, on the other hand, is a card that can be played as soon as it's castable with minimal negative consequences.

P.S.: The recently printed Day's Undoing has some solid synergy with Final Fortune.

[Cire]

I don't see the advantage to Temporal Trespass over lets say manamorphose? Both cost mana. . . and both essentially just draw you a card for free. If you're already playing Manamorphose why not play Street Wraith - it doesn't trigger prowess.. . . actually why not go totally bananas and play both?

4 Manamorphose
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
3 Fireblast
3 Temporal Trespass

4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
4 Street Wraith

4 Volcanic Island
10 Fetchland

[rufus]

I don't see the advantage to Temporal Trespass over lets say manamorphose? Both cost mana. . . and both essentially just draw you a card for free. If you're already playing Manamorphose why not play Street Wraith - it doesn't trigger prowess.. . . actually why not go totally bananas and play both?


It obviously comes with drawbacks, but Temporal Trespass is a force multiplier with creatures - even if it takes all the lands in play to cast it's effectively a free cantrip version of Relentless Assault. Playing both certainly makes sense. I'm just not sure where the sweet spots for deck composition are - after all we could push things even further with Edge of Autumn as a 1 or 2 of.

[Cire]

It obviously comes with drawbacks, but Temporal Trespass is a force multiplier with creatures - even if it takes all the lands in play to cast it's effectively a free cantrip version of Relentless Assault. Playing both certainly makes sense. I'm just not sure where the sweet spots for deck composition are - after all we could push things even further with Edge of Autumn as a 1 or 2 of.

Totally forgot that card existed. . . but it seems unplayable together with Fireblast.

For deck composition - the ideal for a burn deck (that is going pure burn combo) was proved to be the boring 40/20 if i remember (I think there was an article about this, where someone tested the chances of drawing 9 burn spells and 3 lands in a deck with X Lightning Bolts and Y Mountains). With that as a guide lets say we divide it as X "free spells", Y "Burn spells" (where burn spells include Swiftspear and Guide) and Z Lands (which also include fetches). Each "free spell" should take the place of 2/3 "burn" and 1/3 "land" - which in other ways means that for every 3 free spells, we take out 2 burn spells and 1 land. So far we can play (lets say 2 open spots for edge of autumn/ Temporal Trespass) - 22 Free spells. to be divisible by 3 we can either go down to 21 or up to 24 (4 of edge of autumn/Temporal Trespass). So the configuration should be 21 Free, 26 "Burn" , 13 Lands - or 24 Free, 24 "Burn", 12 Lands. That is a very low amount of lands to be fair, and is problematic with Temporal Trespass and ManaMorphose which need lands to be true free spells. But as far as figuration goes - I think that is the appropriate starting point.

[rufus]

Totally forgot that card existed. . . but it seems unplayable together with Fireblast.
Like Tarmogoyf with delve spells? The list I had got to 3 lands pretty regularly.


But as far as figuration goes - I think that is the appropriate starting point.
Getting the starting point 'right' is less important than having a credible refinement procedure. (12 lands is also too low.)

[Michael Keller]

Storm Entity in this deck seems more powerful than Goblin Guide. I like that it dodges Chalice at one, and even with Chalice out, the "storm" count still pumps it up for a nice attack on turn two or three. I get that faster damage is great and all, but consider what you're doing with the deck playing cheap spells for basically free that can turn this into a hasty 5/5, 6/6 - or bigger - that stays on board and punches someone in the mouth for almost certainly a Bolt's worth of damage the turn in comes down.

[rufus]

Storm Entity in this deck seems more powerful than Goblin Guide. I like that it dodges Chalice at one, and even with Chalice out, the "storm" count still pumps it up for a nice attack on turn two or three.

I had it in one of my goldfishing lists. There's some cute interaction with Rift Bolt, but it doesn't work so well with the 'burn through all the cantrips on turn 1' game plan. So it ends up as a terrible top deck in a deck full of cantrips. (No clue how much it helps in the chalice match-up.)

[Phoenix Ignition]

For deck composition - the ideal for a burn deck (that is going pure burn combo) was proved to be the boring 40/20 if i remember (I think there was an article about this, where someone tested the chances of drawing 9 burn spells and 3 lands in a deck with X Lightning Bolts and Y Mountains). With that as a guide lets say we divide it as X "free spells", Y "Burn spells" (where burn spells include Swiftspear and Guide) and Z Lands (which also include fetches). Each "free spell" should take the place of 2/3 "burn" and 1/3 "land" - which in other ways means that for every 3 free spells, we take out 2 burn spells and 1 land. So far we can play (lets say 2 open spots for edge of autumn/ Temporal Trespass) - 22 Free spells. to be divisible by 3 we can either go down to 21 or up to 24 (4 of edge of autumn/Temporal Trespass). So the configuration should be 21 Free, 26 "Burn" , 13 Lands - or 24 Free, 24 "Burn", 12 Lands. That is a very low amount of lands to be fair, and is problematic with Temporal Trespass and ManaMorphose which need lands to be true free spells. But as far as figuration goes - I think that is the appropriate starting point.

I ran a Monte Carlo simulation on this for a class last year, I'm planning on writing an article on it at some point but have gotten rather busy. Magic is extremely difficult to model if you have creature interactions, so I basically did a goldfishing scenario. While there aren't enough spells to have all 1-mana 3-damage (the ideal burn spell), I decided to call the win condition "casting 8 1-mana spells".

These data are for a deck containing 60 cards, with X lands and 60-X 1cmc burn spells (again, cast 8 to win, so something like having 5 spells deal 3 damage and 3 spells deal 2 damage).

http://i.imgur.com/u7c3QQt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CA9WiDg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5Lr83YD.jpg

I also tried mulliganning 7 land hands and every land in between, but it turns out too-high-land-openers don't happen often enough to make that much statistical difference.

Even the difference in lands between optimal and 1 off from optimal would take 117 games of magic to determine with a 95% confidence level that you would win the game 1 turn earlier than you did. That's like 3 GP's of tournament play to determine the difference.

I could probably try modelling this deck, but goldfishing and real games are obviously much different.

Also, mulliganning with a bunch of free cyclers is much harder. Do you keep a hand with 5 cyclers and no lands?

[Cire]

Like Tarmogoyf with delve spells? The list I had got to 3 lands pretty regularly.


Getting the starting point 'right' is less important than having a credible refinement procedure. (12 lands is also too low.)

The issue with fireblast and Edge of Autumn isn't getting to three lands - it's that edge of autumn would only count as a free spell on turn 3 (since that's when you can afford to sacrifice a third land) just like manamorph only counts as a free spell on turn 2. Since edge of autumn takes so long to become a free spell there is a question of whether it is worth it. That said if you are not running Temporal Trespass or Fireblast that scenario becomes less of an issue.

Also is 12 lands too little? I think my math makes sense considering how many free spells you play. Running more lands than absolutely necessary makes your free spells worse as they would have a higher percentage of hitting land than kill spell compared to a 40 Lightning Bolt/20 Land deck.

[jrsthethird]

Also, cycling isn't casting a spell, so it doesn't give you any Prowess or Pyro (is this even in the deck?) triggers.

[rufus]

...

Also is 12 lands too little? I think my math makes sense considering how many free spells you play. Running more lands than absolutely necessary makes your free spells worse as they would have a higher percentage of hitting land than kill spell compared to a 40 Lightning Bolt/20 Land deck.

I think part of it is that the freetrip + mentor synergy is very strong.

In my testing really want to see land drops on turns 1-3, but especially turns 1 & 2. I'm probably playing things wrong.

Still, how could we agree whether 12 is better or worse than 13?

[Cire]

I think part of it is that the freetrip + mentor synergy is very strong.

In my testing really want to see land drops on turns 1-3, but especially turns 1 & 2. I'm probably playing things wrong.

Still, how could we agree whether 12 is better or worse than 13?

You mean Swiftspear synergy?

As for land drops. . . I agree. . . we want a land drop every turn (in order to cast 6 1 mana "burn" spells by turn 3).

As for how can we agree that 12 is better or worse than 13 - outside playtesting simple math: Each "free spell" takes the room of X "Kill spells" and Y "Lands"

Lets say we take Phoenix Ignition's no mulligan chart (as mulligans are useless with so many "unknown" cards in your oppening hand). From that chart we can see 17 Lands and 43 Spells is the most consistent statistically (not sure why he didn't test for higher than 17 - I would think 20/40 is better, but I'm going to use his chart as the basis).

Thus every "Free Spell" takes the place of .395 Lands and .605 "Burn Spells." Now to be fair we shouldn't include manamorphose or temporal trespass as they aren't "free spells" until turn 2 or later. So lets say we are only playing the baubles, street wraith and probe. . . that's 16 "free spells" - that should be around (rounded down) 9 "burn spells and 6 Lands . . . We are you note also one spell over 60 cards (Let's take out an additional burn spell instead of a land, just to be cautious). Thus with 16 "free spells" to equal about 17 lands and 43 burn spells, we should be playing 11 Lands, 16 free spells and 33 Burn Spells. While 11 Lands seems small, indeed it does, playing more lowers significantly the chances you are drawing your burn spells. . .

[Finn]

@Cire, I think that at 11 lands, we are going to lose our numerical advantage simply due to excess mulliganing or alternatively just getting bad luck on freetrips not turning into lands often enough.
@Rufus
Good god, Rufus. I love your take. That manabase is all ketchup and no fries - just the way I like it.I meant that you went very high on fetchies with very few actual lands.

@Mind Bomb: It has this nice synergy with turning extra lands in hand into delve fodder, but then we are still using lands to make mana. I concede that there is some benefit in the NOW factor. But the opponent gets to pitch cards IF they want to. Sometimes that is exactly what they want. Mind Bomb is fraught with problems.

[rufus]

You mean Swiftspear synergy?

As for land drops. . . I agree. . . we want a land drop every turn (in order to cast 6 1 mana "burn" spells by turn 3).

As for how can we agree that 12 is better or worse than 13 - outside playtesting simple math: Each "free spell" takes the room of X "Kill spells" and Y "Lands"
...

Yeah, I mean swiftspear....

So let's say we want to see 3 or 4 lands in the first 10 (non-catrip) cards we see, and let's suppse the deck has 40 non-catrip cards. And for convenience let's assume we don't care about the order. Then it's pretty easy to calculate probabilities.

The columns are 'cards seen', the rows are land counts, and the cells have approximate probabilities.


9 10 11
10 0.37 0.44 0.49
11 0.43 0.49 0.53
12 0.48 0.53 0.55
13 0.52 0.55 0.55
14 0.55 0.55 0.53
15 0.56 0.54 0.50
16 0.56 0.52 0.45
17 0.54 0.48 0.40
18 0.52 0.43 0.34


Now, this underestimates the optimal land count a bit because we really care about hitting land drops on earlier turns. Basically 12 is on the low end of what would be optimal for games on the draw where you get an extra card, and I'm guessing the sweet spot is around 14.

[rufus]

...
@Mind Bomb: It has this nice synergy with turning extra lands in hand into delve fodder, but then we are still using lands to make mana. I concede that there is some benefit in the NOW factor. But the opponent gets to pitch cards IF they want to. Sometimes that is exactly what they want. Mind Bomb is fraught with problems.

Yeah, Rift Bolt (or something else) is probably superior in practice. You could vacate the slot entirely with a cycle-sligh approach:


4 Tropical Island
10 Fetchland

4 Urza's Bauble
4 Misrha's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Street Wraith
4 Manamorphose

3 Temporal Trespass
3 Fireblast

4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike


That blue splash for trespass is looking pretty extravagant when it could obviously be replaced with Price of Progress. That said, I really like the idea of Daze in the sideboard for a deck like this.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Lets say we take Phoenix Ignition's no mulligan chart (as mulligans are useless with so many "unknown" cards in your oppening hand). From that chart we can see 17 Lands and 43 Spells is the most consistent statistically (not sure why he didn't test for higher than 17 - I would think 20/40 is better, but I'm going to use his chart as the basis).


I tested up to 26 lands, it just got dramatically worse afterwards and the graph got more cluttered than was useful. Granted I was more interested in how mulligans affected the outcome, but as you can see in the mulliganning chart, less lands was actually better for mulligans. I expect that behavior to hold for this deck. Here's the data you wish to see:

http://i.imgur.com/Ft4ZRML.jpg

Once again, this is for 8 spells being cast with every spell costing 1cmc. Win turn vs density distribution for no allowed mulligans.


If many of your spells cost 2, this would likely change the look of the graph, as hitting 1 land in my made up scenario meant you would win on turn 8 whereas in this deck that doesn't necessarily happen.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Bonus data in case you're interested:

Here's the average win turn per land count for no allowed mulligans (same win conditions and deck configurations as all above):
http://i.imgur.com/XJCQjfT.jpg

There is more variance (not as smooth of a curve) between them and that I think comes from no mulligans really hurting your average win turn. 0 Land hands can screw you really hard, and by displaying averages you can see the effect of them more than if I did median win turn. Some games went upwards of 30 turns.

[rufus]

Bonus data in case you're interested:

Here's the average win turn per land count for no allowed mulligans ...

Good stuff. I'm assuming that faster game plans (e.g. winning with 6 or 7 spells instead) push the optimal land count higher.

[Cire]

@Cire, I think that at 11 lands, we are going to lose our numerical advantage simply due to excess mulliganing or alternatively just getting bad luck on freetrips not turning into lands often enough.


I think the argument goes that playing free-trips means that we're going to lose out on mulligans regardless and statistically as stated each free-trip should for the best possible statistical advantage be .395 Lands and .605 "Burn Spells." Playing more lands would mean that each free-trip is .4+ Lands and -.6 "Burn Spells" which means that on average they would draw less kill spells and lead to more mana floods than you would in a deck without "free trips."

[Phoenix Ignition]

Good stuff. I'm assuming that faster game plans (e.g. winning with 6 or 7 spells instead) push the optimal land count higher.

I did it with 7 spells, 6 didn't make sense since I'm only using 1cmc spells and you can't do better than Lightning Bolt (actually, I wanted to try it with Fireblast, but didn't have time to code that in before the statistics part had to be done).

Here are the average win turns for 7 spell win condition, no mulligans allowed:
http://i.imgur.com/pmB1om7.jpg
And here's 7 spell win condition, with mulligans on 0 land hands:
http://i.imgur.com/PiruzG5.jpg

Mulliganning bad hands always pushed the correct number of lands downward. I don't know if this would go without limit, however, if you effectively changed the deck size to 40 using free cycles it could change and again with 2cmc spells it could be different.

[rufus]

So I finally got a crude simulator up and running. Mulling down to 5 cards for an initial land, with a simple play strategy, and just goldfishing...

In 1,000 runs on the play:
Turn 1 wins: 0
Turn 2 wins: 2
Turn 3 wins: 341
Turn 4 wins: 379
Turn 5 wins: 182
Turn 6 wins: 6

Did not win by turn 6: 49

In 1,000 runs on the draw
Turn 1 wins: 0
Turn 2 wins: 2
Turn 3 wins: 565
Turn 4 wins: 274
Turn 5 wins: 96
Turn 6 wins: 28

Did not win by turn 6: 35

I discounted extra turns.

Deck list for Reference

4 Volcanic Island
10 Steam Vents
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Street Wraith
4 Manamorphose
3 Temporal Trespass
3 Fireblast
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike


... Perhaps I should add Black Vise...

[lyracian]

10 Steam Vents
4 Urza's Bauble
... Perhaps I should add Black Vise...
Or maybe have less than 10 Steam Vent's?

[rufus]

Or maybe have less than 10 Steam Vent's?

Thanks for reading. Those are proxies for a mix of fetch lands (any of the 7 that will fetch a volcanic island will work), and I'm just too lazy to split it out.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I'm curious, how do you choose mana colors with manamorphose? Do you fudge it a bit with just calling it "awesome 5color mana" or based on what's in your hand or based on what's in the deck you could draw?

[rufus]

I'm curious, how do you choose mana colors with manamorphose? Do you fudge it a bit with just calling it "awesome 5color mana" or based on what's in your hand or based on what's in the deck you could draw?

In the sim it's just awesome 5-color mana. With the simplified game plan it's usually clear what color mana you're going to want anyway.

Edit: You can just swap in Black Vises instead and go mono-R too. It's better on the play, and worse on the draw.

[Gheizen64]

I came back to this deck because i wanted to test Vise, but in the end i think the best gain you have now is DTT banned. With DTT banned, therapies combined with Probe , Baubles and Goblin Guides make for a much easier control MU when they can't refill as easily now. For reference:


4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
4 Goblin Guide
4 Dark Confidant

4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fireblast

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Snuff Out

4 Badlands
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Arid Mesa

SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
SB: 2 Pyrokinesis
SB: 1 Duress


17 lands may be too little, maybe remove the singleton snuff out and add another fetch.

[Aronesxd]

is this deck really an improvement to the traditional burn / Red deck wins ? to me it looks like this could only be better if you play a more resiliant / grindy game, it might be a little more consistent and might be more reliable on hate but i think at the cost of sheer speed...
my post is about the list above me, not for the whole deck idea.
mfg Matthew

[rufus]

is this deck really an improvement to the traditional burn / Red deck wins ? to me it looks like this could only be better if you play a more resiliant / grindy game, it might be a little more consistent and might be more reliable on hate but i think at the cost of sheer speed...
my post is about the list above me, not for the whole deck idea.

Yeah. I was going to write something similar with more specifics, and how Baubles + Dark Confidant + Cabal Therapy is really more sensible as a BW Monastery Mentor value plan.

When I was contemplating at a black splash more in line with the deck's primary philosophy, and the potential of Bloodghast, and Soulflayer as inexpensive hasty beaters is intriguing. As was mentiond, you can also addBump in the Night to the direct damage spells.

There's a decent 'discard for value' package available to supplement the bloodghast - pitching cards like Basking Rootwalla,Call to the Netherworld,Fiery Temper, and maybe even Ichorid or Flamewake Phoenix would further the deck's game plan. But I'm not sure the discard outlets are up to snuff.

[Finn]

Rufus, your testing seemed to be going so well. Did you give up on this?

Also, I loved the idea of Temporal Tresspass so much. Does it continue to be a beneficial card in the deck?

[rufus]

Rufus, your testing seemed to be going so well. Did you give up on this?

Also, I loved the idea of Temporal Tresspass so much. Does it continue to be a beneficial card in the deck?

I stopped tinkering with it, but I've had it on the back of my mind. I'm not really set up to do head to head match testing.

In the simulation, Trespass is the worst card in the deck to draw in the opening 7.

The mention of Tyrant's Choice in the bedlam reveler thread has me thinking about a black version with Soulflayer.

[mistercakes]

i took this foom idea and tried it in a different direction. only playing casuals but it seems to be holding its own. the difference here is that tarmogoyf is actually a pretty nasty creature in a deck like this. i saw nimble mongoose being played outside of rug in that miracle slayer thread, and figured....why not get threshold on turn 2. therapy provides enough disruption and there's enough removal for a path for your guys (goyfs are almost always 5/6's in this deck). i've also considered running a singleton gaddock teeg in the maindeck, but that will require a fetch to become a scrubland or a savannah.

thoughts are welcomed.

creatures

4 nimble mongoose
4 deathrite shaman
4 tarmogoyf
4 dark confidant
4 street wraith
1 death's shadow

spells

4 lotus petal
4 mishra's bauble
4 urza's bauble
4 gitaxian probe
4 manamorphose
4 cabal therapy
2 dismember
1 disfigure
1 reanimate

planeswalker

1 liliana of the veil

lands

4 verdant catacomb
2 polluted delta
2 bayou
1 forest
1 swamp

sb:

2 surgical extraction
1 disfigure
1 thoughtseize
2 engineered plague
1 choke
3 abrupt decay
3 winter orb
1 engineered explosives
1 tormod's crypt

-rob

[Finn]

I stopped tinkering with it, but I've had it on the back of my mind. I'm not really set up to do head to head match testing.

In the simulation, Trespass is the worst card in the deck to draw in the opening 7.

The mention of Tyrant's Choice in the bedlam reveler thread has me thinking about a black version with Soulflayer.

Tyran't Choice is a bomb in multiplayer, btw.

Bedlam Reveler has a neat interaction with...Mind Bomb! Earlier in this thread I was trashing Mind Bomb (It really is a terrible, just awful card). But with Bedlam Reveler, it could possibly be discard/damage and mana production all in one. This was true before. But with Reveler, you are discarding your hand anyway.

>>>:trying hard not to explode:<<<<

Ah! I still refuse to try it.

[apple713]

joining the thread late but, is rift bolt too slow?

how about Thunderous Wrath You draw SO many cards when cycling it could pay off quite alot.



lands

4 mountain
10 fetch

cycle

4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Street Wraith
4 Manamorphose

burn

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 rift bolt
3 fireblast

3 thunderous wrath
8 variable cards



the question I have is how much value are you getting out of goblin guide and monestary swiftspear? Like whats the average damage you get out of them? 2? 4? I see that you are trying to maximize it with temporal tesspass but i feel like price of progress would just do better overall.

I can't really think of decks that wouldnt take 4-6+ from price on turn 3. Sure solidarity but u can sideboard for that shit.

Thinking about it, with thunderous and fireblast, getting both of them makes up for a bolt effect. Thats 1 less card you have to draw. So you need 7x bolt effects, or 4 bolt effects with fireblast and thunderous.

[rufus]

...
the question I have is how much value are you getting out of goblin guide and monestary swiftspear? Like whats the average damage you get out of them? 2? 4? I see that you are trying to maximize it with temporal tesspass but i feel like price of progress would just do better overall.
...

When goldfishing they are by far the best cards in the list. Keep in mind that this is a deck where getting 3 damage per business card is about par. So if you can get 4, and also force some kind of response from the opponent, you're doing OK.

Thunderous Wrath is fun, but, without deck stacking it limits the card turnover you can run. (The miracle trigger only works on the first card drawn each turn.)

[apple713]

When goldfishing they are by far the best cards in the list. Keep in mind that this is a deck where getting 3 damage per business card is about par. So if you can get 4, and also force some kind of response from the opponent, you're doing OK.

Thunderous Wrath is fun, but, without deck stacking it limits the card turnover you can run. (The miracle trigger only works on the first card drawn each turn.)

Alright so how about ankh of Mishra? Its a little slow and terrible late game but gamebreaking for this deck early game. Fetchlands for 5 life is terrible for our opponent. Although it will hurt us too we are more likely to win the race. It also punishes cards like daze, all midrange decks requiring more mana. Although some decks can function with two mana it is at least likely to slow them down.

[rufus]

Alright so how about ankh of Mishra? Its a little slow and terrible late game but gamebreaking for this deck early game. Fetchlands for 5 life is terrible for our opponent. Although it will hurt us too we are more likely to win the race. It also punishes cards like daze, all midrange decks requiring more mana. Although some decks can function with two mana it is at least likely to slow them down.

The card I was looking at is Black Vise. I like that Ankh punishes fetch lands, but it's slow, and it gives the opponent a choice, which is not ideal.

[Finn]

The card I was looking at is Black Vise. I like that Ankh punishes fetch lands, but it's slow, and it gives the opponent a choice, which is not ideal.

I have never been happy with Ankh of Mishra. Dunno about Vise. I hate the idea of drawing dead cards in this deck.

[mistercakes]

have you guys tried browbeat in this list? dunno how often you get to 3 mana.