Went to OMG Games in Barrie for a tournament on Feb 26th. I wanted to play something different than the burn deck but as I've never been to the store before and couldn't find out what the meta was like, I decided to take the burn deck again as it's a super consistent deck and not very many people expect it. Nothing's changed from the list from last week. There were 20 people exactly so it was 5 rounds, cut to top 8.

13 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Barbarian Ring

4 Goblin Guide
2 Grim Lavamancer

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Magma Jet
4 Price of Progress
3 Flamebreak
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Fireblast

Sideboard

4 Relic of Progenitus
1 Volcanic Fallout
3 Searing Blaze
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Combust

Round 1 - Brad (Elf Combo)

Game 1: Before pairings came up, I chatted with him and he really didn't want to play me again and guess what, we get paired up round 1. This was actually a relatively close game as I didn't get a fast start and just bolted him once or twice each turn and he just kept on playing lands. On around turn 4 before he was going to die, he tried to combo off but fizzled after playing around 7 elves and a symbiote and I was able to kill him the next turn. Phew.

Sideboard: -4 Price of Progress, +3 Searing Blaze, +1 Volcanic Fallout. I didn't really want to board this way because I knew he'd sideboard into absolute law and if he did get that out early, my searing blazes will be useless. Unfortunately, I have nothing else to board in and the Price of Progress' were pretty dead against him.

Game 2: He mulled to 6 and kept. I figured he would aggressively mull into absolute law. He was able to bring out a turn 2 absolute law but he had nothing else on the board and I had the hand with 3 lands and many bolts + fireblast and I just rolled over him on turn 4 as all of his elves had summoning sickness on turn 3.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - Jamie (RGU Lands)

Game 1: He had a super nuts draw and turn 1 he went taiga, mox diamond pitched fetchland, exploration, and played a fetchland, cracked and then cast life from the loam getting both fetchlands back. Wow, his engine is online already. I played a goblin guide, swung for 2 and he saw a mox. On his turn, he then just played both his lands leaving the mox in his hand and passed. I swung with the guide again and magma jet him and he saw that he had intuition coming up next. He drew and cast intuition main phase for a cycling forest, zuran orb and academy ruins. I gave him the cycling land to make him work for the zuran orb. He then cracked both of his fetch for 2 tropicals and decided to cycle. He drew and passed a turn without making any land drops. I figured I was dead next turn so I magma jet again at the end of his turn to see if I could kill him next turn and I found some burn spells on top of my library.

Phew. That was a pretty tight game he had going there. Not sure what he could have done differently but it was a pretty tight game.

Sideboard: -4 Goblin Guide, -3 Flamebreak, -2 Grim Lavamancer, +3 Smash to Smithereens, +2 Sulfuric Vortex, +4 Relic of Progenitus

Game 2: I opened up with a hand of 3 lands, 1 sulfuric vortex and some burn spells so I kept. He went first and again, went land, exploration, another land, gamble. Pretty sure he gambled for the Zuran Orb. Rolled a dice to see what he would discard and I actually got the Orb. Wohoo! I just bolted him during my turn and passed. He then drew and played a land and academy ruins. Woot! Bolted him a couple more times on my turn and passed and he put the orb back on top of his library at the end of my turn. He was at 10 already on his turn 3 so he played the zuran orb and played another land and passed. I drew, played a land cast my Sulfuric Vortex. In response, he sacs 4 land to go back to 18 and leave a raging ravine in play. He then plays a port and a ghost quarter in the next couple of turns and i'm trying my hardest to burn him. After he plays the ghost quarter, he ends up tapping the ghost quarter and port to tap one of my mountains during my upkeep. That was my turn to capitalize on that and I Price of Progressed him in response and he took 6. he then decided to sac his ghost quarter to kill his port to get a Forest and when he was at 4, he was able to play an Engineered Explosives for 3 with a mox diamond. I wasn't able to burn
him out during my turn because I kept on drawing land for the past couple of turns. He blew up the vortex during his upkeep to go to 2 life. I ended up topdecking burn spells and he kept on sacrificing his lands to keep afloat and he ended up at 4 life with no lands in play while I had around 7 lands in play. Who's the lands deck again?? I managed to topdeck 2 burn spells before he topdecked a land a couple turns later and that was it.

Wow, I thought lands was supposed to be a good matchup for me but it doesn't seem to be the case from these 2 games. Also, Jamie was a total gentleman throughout the match. He knew he was in an uphill battle and didn't rage at all at any time. Total pleasure to play against.

2-0 (4-0)

Round 3 - Richard (Spiral Tide)

Game 1: I knew this was going to be a total uphill battle as I had nothing in the sideboard against him and price of progresses were totally dead against him too. Long story short, game 1, i put the pressure on him and the turn he's about to die, he chains 2 time spirals against me and then fizzles. WOOT!!! I just attacked and killed him with an uncounterable fallout in case he kept some counters.

Sideboard: -4 Price of Progress, +4 Relic of Progenitus. I wish I had more to board as I really wanted to get rid of Flamebreaks too.

Game 2: He made 4 land drops, I brought him down to 9. He was at a higher life total than usual because he diverted some of my burn spells to my head or to my goblin guides which I didn't expect. Then he cast some high tides, turnabouts, time spirals. I tried to cast some burn spells in response to the time spiral but he always had a counter ready. He was able to hardcast emrakul and attacked me to death.

Game 3: Pretty much a repeat of game 2 except that he ended up at 5 life instead of 9.

I'm really not sure what to do when he tries to time spiral. Maybe I should have risked to draw into a hand full of instant bolts and fireblasts?

2-1 (4-2)

Round 4 - Matt (U/R Show/Sneak w/Through the Breach)

Game 1: We both knew what the other was playing and knew this was going to be over real fast. Basically, I burn him down to around 10 life during his turn 3. He manages to through the breach an Ulamog and attacks for 10. I burn him down to 7 next turn and then he show and tells another Ulamog in. I had a bolt in hand but no fireblast or land so there was no way to deal 7 damage next turn. On to game 2.

Sideboard: -3 Flamebreak, -1 Grim Lavamancer, +4 Relic of Progenitus

Game 2: I had to mull to 5 because my first 2 hands had no land. My next hand was actually quite good as I had 2 goblin guides, 1 mountain, 1 bolt and a relic. I was able to deal 14 on turn 2 and then on his turn 3 he cast an Ulamog via Through the breach again and attacked for 10. I played a land and bolted him. He show and telled another Ulamog into play to bring him to 4 and I put my relic in play. I drew and didn't draw a fireblast so i sacrificed relic and drew again and it wasn't a fireblast either. Couldn't deal 4 damage with just 1 untapped mountain and that's that.

2-2 (4-4)

Round 5 - Rachel (Imperial Aluren)

Game 1: I don't even know what this combo does other than bouncing cavern harpy back and bouncing the drain life owl back over and over again. Wasn't sure if there was anything burn can do to actually stop the cycle if aluren hits play either. I was hoping that I could just burn her out before Aluren hits play. I had a pretty good hand with 2 goblin guides and a some 2 mana burn spells. I think all she did was therapy away one of my magma jets but I had a price of progress in hand so the goblin guides, bolt and price of progress got there.

Sideboard: -3 Flamebreak, -1 Grim Lavamancer, +3 Searing Blaze, +1 Volcanic Fallout +1 . I figured that lavamancers would be too slow and same with flamebreaks. I did see some creatures like the coiling oracle and birds so I figured that those would be good Searing Blaze targets.

Game 2: Again, I got an extremely fast hand with 2 goblin guides and some one mana bolts and a fireblast. I actually revealed 3 lands in 2 turns with the goblin guides and she actually had to discard the extra land in her hand. I ended up killing her on my turn 3 by attacking with 2 guides, then bolt, fireblast, bolt. She ended up forcing the fireblast but then was at 3 and then my last bolted went through for the win.

She told me afterwards that she would have went off next turn as she would have intuitioned for 3 alurens at the end of my turn and she had all the creatures in her hand as well. Phew. Go Goblin Guides, I think they dealt a total of 10 damage that game.

3-2 (6-4)

I thought I would have sneaked in the top 8 but apparently there were a lot of draws in the first couple of rounds so I think around 3 3-2s made it into the top 8? That's pretty insane. Top 8 was New Horizons, Spiral Tide, Burn, Sneak/Tell, URG Lands, BUG Lands, BUG Control and GW Aggro.

Quarterfinals - Richard (Spiral Tide)

wow, that's like the only matchup I didn't want to face and I get to play against it again.

Again, these 2 games were fairly lopsided. Game 1, I got him down to 11 and then he comboed off. Game 2, He was at 10 when he comboed off and I had 4 mountains untapped when he cast time spiral. He kept on chaining time spirals until I got a hand with 3 lightning bolts and a fireblast. I tried to kill him after he cast a high tide but he was able to counter 2 of the burn spells and that was game.

Afterthoughts:

Facing 5 combo matchups out of 6 was fairly brutal. Flamebreaks were totally useless in this particular environment. Even against other aggro decks, the flamebreaks seem kind of suboptimal since either the creatures are small enough to get killed by volcanic fallout or they're too big for the flamebreak to handle. Might have to consider changing the Flamebreaks into something else now that Zoo isn't really popular here. I'm still not a big fan of Relic of Progenitus either. I had relic out against the spiral tide matchup too but again, it's not very back breaking. Maybe I'll just forget about the graveyard hate and focus on other hate.

On another note, the store was great. Amazing play area, very large and clean. All the players were extremely friendly. Also has a great selection of cards at great prices. I'll be back for the next tournament for sure.