Top 8 with Burn

[pocari79]

Last saturday, there was a tournament at World's Collide in Oshawa. Around 22 people showed up. I took my burn deck to see if it could top 8 again. Here's the decklist:

18 Mountain
1 Barbarian ring

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
3 Shard Volley

4 Magma Jet
3 Keldon Marauders
3 Hellspark Elemental
3 Price of Progress

3 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Volcanic Fallout

3 Fireblast

Sideboard

3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pithing Needle
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Powder Keg
3 Nevinryyal's Disk

22 people, there were 5 rounds and cut to top 8.

Round 1 - Mono-red Goblins (2-1)

Game 1: I won the dice roll, was able to keep a lackey off the table while I burned him out. Killed him before he was able to attack back with lethal damage on the table.

Sided in +3 Kegs, -3 Price of Progress

Game 2: He had turn 1 lackey, turn 2 instigator, turn 3 instigator. I had to waste my first 3 bolts on those 3 creatures and he never ran out of goblins. He kept playing matrons, ringleaders, warchiefs, piledrivers and didn't draw any of my fallouts and died a miserable death.

Game 3: Pretty much the same as game 1 except I got sulfuric vortex out.

Kegs seemed really useless in this matchup as all the goblin's CC range from 1-5 so I never know how many counters to put the kegs on. Maybe set it on 3 to kill the lords so I can fallout everything else?

Round 2 - Countertop w/thopter+sword combo (1-2)

Game 1: Got him down all the way to 2 life and then he had counterbalance, top, thopter foundry and sword of the meek out and was tapped out. He had 6 land in play so starting next turn, he would gain 6 life per turn so I had to try for the fireblast while he was tapped out and of course he had the Force of Will. Oh well.

Sided in +3 Needles, +3 REB, -3 Keldon Marauders, -3 volcanic fallout

Game 2: This game wasn't even close. I didn't get any of my sideboard cards and he got out a really early counterbalance + top and showed me that he had CC of 1 and 2 on top of his library and had 2 FoWs in his hand.

I probably sided wrong this game. Should have taken out the Shard Volleys as being down a land against countertop sucks and volcanic fallouts are useful. I never saw a sideboard card in game 2 though so maybe I should have mulled more aggressively?

Round 3 - Reanimator (2-1)

Game 1: I got him down to 14 on turn 2 and then he did turn 2 iona. Couldn't deal the last 5 damage. oh well.

Sided in +3 Faerie Macabre, -3 Keldon Marauders

Game 2: I mulled to 5 and got a hand with 3 burn, 2 faerie macabre and kept. I was able to nail a turn 1 entomb -> Iona with a faerie macabre. Kept burning him and found out that he actually boarded Blue Elemental Blasts. Like seriously? what red decks is he afraid of that he needs to pack BEBs?? Anyways, he tries for another entomb at around 5 life and I was able to remove it with the faerie too and then he forfeited. YAY!

Sided in +3 Red Elemental Blast, -3 Volcanic Fallout

Game 3: I mulled to 5 again and kept a hand that had 3 land ,1 burn and 1 REB. He had turn 1 careful study but didn't pitch any creatures. I always kept one mana open and always had at least 2 cards in my hand to pretend that I had hate. He still didn't do anything and by the time I drew a faerie, he was at 5 and then he just scooped without even attempting to entomb anything. Afterwards he said that he could have turn 1 careful study, discard Iona but he didn't and I was just like oh well, too bad buddy. I guess game 2 really scarred him.

Round 4 - Suicide black w/goyf (eva green??) (2-0)

Game 1: He was able to turn 1 thoughtseize, turn 2 sinkhole, turn 3 hymn and actually hymned away one of my lands. I was still able to win since I he was never able to get rid of my last land, I had lots of 1 mana bolts and he kept taking 2 damage from Dark Confidant.

Sided in +3 Powder Kegs, -3 Hellspark elemental

Game 2: He didn't have much disruption but he did have fast dark confidants and had 2 goyfs out by turn 4. He was going to kill me next turn until I topdecked a bolt and was able to deal 9 damage via bolt, fireblast, barbarian ring and killed him.

Round 5 - Landstill (ID)

Played a game for fun and I lost. He was at 2 life, I had no cards in hand and he had Jace v2.0 out and he had a bunch of factories and was plowing them to gain life. Jace was getting close to ultimate when i just gave up and wanted to get something to eat. He probably would have won that one unless I drew a price of progress and he didn't have a counter.

Top 8 - Mono-red Sneak Attack (1-2)

Game 1: I had no idea what he was playing since his games always ended super fast in the swiss rounds. Had no clue what he was doing when he was just playing lotus petals and sandstone needles until he cast Through the Breach and played an Emrakul. Luckily I kept a hand with a bunch of instant burn so I managed to burn him before I had to sac stuff to Emrakul. Thankfully I was able to burn him out before he was able to cast his 2nd Through the Breach.

Sided in +3 Pithing Needle, -3 Keldon Marauders

Game 2: I got mauled. He got turn 1 sandstone needle, turn 2, crystal vein, lotus petal. Sac both, tap sandstone needle, cast rite of flame, cast seething song, cast seething song. 10 mana in pool, cast kolizek. Then he gets to draw 4 cards as kolizek is hardcasted. *sigh*. On to game 3!

Game 3: I mulled to 6 and didn't get a pithing needle. Not sure why but i didn't feel like mulliganing again. Sure enough, he gets out turn 2 sneak attack, turn 3 attack with kolizek and some other gigantic dude and died. I supposed I should have seen if i could mull into a pithing needle.

I think I should be able to beat the sneak attack deck if I was able to needle the sneak attack as it takes too long for him to recover after accelerating into Through the Breach.

I'm loving the burn deck. I'm finding that I'm siding out the Keldon Marauders a lot in both tournaments as it just doesn't deal enough damage fast enough and I'm thinking of replacing the marauders with smash to smithereens or incinerates.

[rockout]

How do you ever get to 4 mana to cast disk?

[jrsthethird]

Volcanic Fallout should be Flamebreak, since 3 > 2 for same amount of mana.
Keldon Marauders is one of the best cards in your deck. Most of the time 5 damage for 2 mana
Flame Rift is amazing. 4 damage for 2 mana, always
Barbarian Ring is auto-4-of. Uncounterable (barring Stifle effects), uncolored damage. Good finisher (definitely relevant in that CounterTop matchup)
Shard Volley is alright, should be something better (does provide 2 cards for Threshold though, might be occasionally relevant)
Goblin Guide is sick. 2 damage on turn 1 and every turn thereafter where it is unanswered.

Nevinyrral's Disk is terrible. 4 mana?
Powder Keg is crap. Not enough relevant matchups.

[xTrainx]

Fallout is nice because it's uncounterable.

Goblin Guide is pretty good as well; except in the Zoo matchup. He beats as a shock, and quickly grows - if you're on the play he's almost guaranteed to be a Fireblast unless he eats removal.

[jakolhops]

Volcanic Fallout should be Flamebreak, since 3 > 2 for same amount of mana.
.

I totally disagree with this statement. VF is amazing and if you havent tested it i suggest you do.
Reasons why, Flamebreak is a sorcery, and it can be countered. I dont know how many times i have faced a army of coming goblins only to VF in response to attackers killing his whole army.

[pocari79]

Rockout - It's actually pretty easy to get to 4 mana in this deck if you really want to. Usually you'd have 2-3 land in opening hand and the magma jet can help you look for spells or land. Now that I think about it, I should have boarded Disks against the countertop thopter deck.

jrsthethird - my metagame right now doesn't have that much zoo for some reason. If my meta was infested with zoo, then I would play flamebreaks. There's a lot of counter decks and tribal so volcanic fallout is really good at dealing the last couple of damage against counter decks or wiping the board away against goblins, elves, merfolk. There's no way I'm playing 4 barbarian rings since it interferes with Fireblast. I tried 2 barbarian rings out and found that I was unable to cast fireblast whenever I wished. The marauders in theory gets in for 5 damage but it's spread over 3 turns plus that's if they have no blockers/removal. In my experience, I cast the marauders and then it gets plowed/pathed/bolted the turn it attacks/blocks so it only ends up dealing 2 damage anyways. I use shard volley the same way I use fireblast, which is on the same turn that the person is going to die. There's only one other situation where I'd cast shard volley and that's if the opponent forces me to sac a land or they land destruct me. I really dislike goblin guide since you're basically giving your opponent better draws. Someone played goblin guide against me before and that guy got wrecked because I was able to manipulate the top card of my library to be land with magma jet and I would always draw a land which is so good for me since I can draw into more business spells and play more spells per turn. Now if the burn deck is pleased to draw land outside of his draw phase, then every other deck must love it as well. It's just way too disadvantageous. Powder keg is great at killing zombie tokens, chalices set for one, and a bunch of creatures in zoo since they're all mostly 2CC. It just sucked against goblins since i didn't realize that they had important creatures from 1 to 5CC on the curve.

[jrsthethird]

Maybe if you cut Shard Volley for something that doesn't make you sac a land, you'll be able to have more Mountains for Fireblast.

[bigbear102]

Fallout is nice because it's uncounterable.

Goblin Guide is pretty good as well; except in the Zoo matchup. He beats as a shock, and quickly grows - if you're on the play he's almost guaranteed to be a Fireblast unless he eats removal.

I play 3 Flamebreak main and board into Volcanic Fallout against merfolk.

Goblin Guide is very good, I played it for the first time this weekend at PTGRTS's Lotus Mox Dual event ant took 9th. He is even good in the Zoo match cuz they never block being afraid of burn to kill their dudes, and a lot of times their guys are tapped cuz they aren't playing D. He is also good in that matchup as a blocker cuz sometimes you just need that extra turn.