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Thread: [Burn] Double Report from tournaments at World's Collide and OMG Games

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    [Burn] Double Report from tournaments at World's Collide and OMG Games

    This is going to be a double report as I didn't have enough time to write one last week. First tournament was at World's Collide on Sat, March 5th. I don't think I made much changes to the deck, main changes were in the sideboard.

    Maindeck

    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
    2 Sulfuric Vortex
    4 Volcanic Fallout
    4 Fireblast

    Sideboard

    4 Chalice of the Void
    3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
    3 Searing Blaze
    3 Smash to Smithereens
    2 Combust

    World's Collide is primarily known for having a heavy blue metagame so I felt that Boseiju should help. I added Chalice just to try it out and see how it works. There was around 14 people at this tournament so it was 4 rounds, cut to top 4.

    Round 1 - Galen (Countertop Painter)

    Game 1: Hooray, I see a countertop and an ready for a long drawn out game and then all of a sudden he plays Painter's Servant and I'm thinking to myself this is going to be over. He's able to pyroblast/REB all my burn spells and then he's able to topdeck a grindstone and it's all over.

    Sideboard: +3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All, +3 Smash to Smithereens, -2 Sulfuric Vortex, -4 Goblin Guide

    Game 2: Again, I try to burn him and I was able to burn him down to 2 and then he's able to stablize with Counterbalance, Top and Jace v2.0. I drew a Barbarian Ring and had threshold and tried to kill him with that but he was able to Stifle it. I wasn't able to draw a Volcanic Fallout and he was able to attack with a Trinket Mage, 2 Mishra's Factories for 3 turns and I died.

    *sigh*, not the greatest start. Countertop with a combo kill is way too fast for this deck to handle.

    0-1 (0-2)

    Round 2 - Wilkin (Deadguy w/Vials)

    Game 1: It sucks playing against a friend but what can you do. This game wasn't really close, I had a turn 1 Goblin Guide and kept killing blockers for the guide because I was really afraid of Stoneforge Mystic searching for Sword of Fire and Ice and successfully equiping it on any creature. He ended up running out of creatures first and I was able to keep on bolting him to win.

    Sideboard: -2 Grim Lavamancer, -4 Price of Progress, +3 Smash to Smithereens, +3 Searing Blaze

    Game 2: Again, I started with a Goblin Guide and it looked like I had a boatload of Magma Jets as his life kept on dropping in 2s from 20 -> 8 life. Again, he wasn't able to deal any damage to me and ran out of creatures and I was able to bolt him to finish the game.

    1-1 (2-2)

    Round 3 - Chris (Artifact Elves??)

    I had saw him play earlier and he was playing elves with Steel Hellkite? Not sure what to expect with this deck but apparently he dropped without telling the tournament organizer so I got a bye after 10 min.

    2-1 (4-2)

    Round 4 - Harant (UG Lands)

    Game 1: He wasn't too sure what I was playing and he got an early Glacial Chasm around turn 3 and I had only dealt around 6 damage. I was able to Price of Progress him during his upkeep after he didn't pay upkeep for Glacial Chasm to bring him down to 4 life and thought I was able to topdeck some instant burn spells but I kept on drawing lands and he was able to kill me in 3 turns with a Nantuko Monestary and a Mishra's Factory. *sigh*.

    Sideboard: -2 Grim Lavamancer, -4 Chain Lightning, -1 Lava Spike, +4 Chalice of the Void, +3 Smash to Smithereens. I was hoping to Chalice for 0 and 1 to make his Mox Diamonds and Explorations/Manabonds useless.

    Game 2: I had to mull to 5. Got 1 land, 2 Chalice of the Void and 2 burn spells so I had to keep. I played a Chalice for zero and a mountain and passed. Apparently he drew a Mox Diamond next turn because everybody started laughing afterwards. He played a tranquil thicket and passed. I was hoping to draw a land but wasn't able to so I just played a Goblin Guide I drew and attacked. He then drew and cast an Exploration and played a couple of lands and passed. I drew another Goblin Guide and attacked for 4. He played a couple more lands and passed. I attacked for 4 again and passed. He was able to get a Tabernacle on his turn and passed. I didn't want to pay upkeep for the Goblin Guides as I wanted to try to cast some spells so I let it go and I finally got my second land. He ended up getting a Glacial Chasm at around 6 life and stablized for a long time and again, I wasn't able to draw any instant burn spells. He played a Smokestack and passed and I couldn't do anything with a Chasm in play so I passed. He then ramped the Smokestack to 1 and passed. I sacrificed my Chalice for zero during my upkeep and then played another Chalice for zero and passed. He fetched at the end of turn to go to 5 life and then paid the 2 life for
    Chasm. then with Smokestack trigger on the stack, I cast Smash to Smithereens because I only had 3 permanents left and a Smokestack at 2 will cripple me as the only spells I had left were Price of Progress and Fireblast. So he's at 3 life with no Smokestack. He then passed without doing much and drew and passed. He let the upkeep for Chasm go and then I cast Price of Progress for the win.

    There was around 2 minutes left in the round so we drew and I thought I would be able to make it in top 4 as my tiebreakers were the highest of all the 6 points but after the draw, I found out that my tiebreakers became worse than Harant's by 2.1% and I was out of top 4.

    *sigh*. This was the first time I played against Glacial Chasm and wow, it's super annoying as I had nothing against that.

    Afterthoughts:

    - Decided that I didn't want to autolose to Glacial Chasm and Painter Combo or any combo involving lots of artifacts.
    - Boseiju felt like a bad addition to this version of the deck now as the maindeck doesn't have a lot of burn that needs colorless spells to cast. Was a lot better when I had Incinerates in the main.
    - Maindeck felt pretty solid though. Again, not very satisfied with the Grim Lavamancers but still can't think of anything worthy to replace it with though.

    Fast forward to this weekend. There was a tournament at OMG Games on Sat, March 12th. I knew that the regulars played a lot of combo and aggro and for some reason, control doesn't do very well there. So I tuned my sideboard like this:

    3 Searing Blaze
    3 Null Rod
    3 Smash to Smithereens
    3 Blood Moon
    2 Pyrostatic Pillar
    1 Chalice of the Void

    I included the Blood Moon as I didn't feel like losing to Glacial Chasm ever again and I found out from a judge that if a player has a bunch of non basics and a Blood Moon is in play, Price of Progress still deals damage to that player because the land's type should show Land - Mountain instead of Basic Land - Mountain. So all those lands will be Non-Basic Mountains and Price of Progress still works. So I felt that this should also help out against control decks as well. Pyrostatic Pillars are there for the combo decks that I know will show up and I wanted to test to see how the Pillars are. Chalice is there because I didn't have the 3rd Pillar and the Null Rods are there to disrupt any random artifact decks, equipment and combo like Thopter/Sword and Painter/Grindstone.

    There was only 12 players which was kind of disappointing but the prizes didn't decrease at all which is freaking amazing. 4 Rounds with cut to top 4.

    Round 1 - Austin (Cheerios)

    Game 1: This is like a 10 year old kid playing Cheerios and is a really good sport so it was really enjoyable to play against him. I got a turn 1 Goblin Guide against him but he kept on drawing Khalini Gardens so he kept on blocking with with 0/1 plant tokens. I didn't expect that and kept a really slow hand and it took like 4 turns until I got him down to 10 llife. Then on his turn, he cast a Glimpse of Nature and kept on playing 0cc creatures. then he cast Crop Rotation sacrificing Gaea's Cradle for another Cradle, generating enough mana to play 2 Beastmaster's Ascension and a Hunting Pack for god knows how many storm. I was just glad that I didn't see Concordant Crossroads or else I would have lost that turn. Then during my turn, I drew my Lightning Bolt and was able to Chain, Bolt, sac both Mountains for Fireblast to kill him.

    Sideboard: -1 Grim Lavamancer, -2 Sulfuric Vortex, +1 Chalice of the Void, +2 Pyrostatic Pillar

    Game 2: I drew a pretty godlike opening hand against this deck. 1 Chalice, 1 Pillar, 2 Mountains, 1 Goblin Guide and a couple of burn spells. He also snap kept so I felt that he had a really good hand. He led off with a Khalini Gardens and I led off with Chalice for zero, mountain, Goblin Guide. As I played the Chalice for zero, I felt really bad for him because this one card pretty much just shuts him down and I saw his face go from a grinning look to super frown town and I'm just feeling like i'm the biggest ass on this planet. But it is a tournament and I wanna win!! I swung for 2 and he didn't block and basically, he couldn't do anything this game as on my turn 2, I bolted him twice and on my turn 3, I played the Pillar and just kept on attacking and he ended up trying to kill himself with Glimpse of Nature but I just Price of Progressed in response.

    I gotta say, the kid didn't rage or anything afterwards and just accepted as part of Magic which was extremely grown up of him. I know of several players that can learn from this kid attitude wise. We played a couple more fun games pre-board and it just seemed like his deck was always one turn slower because he had to play with the Khalini Gardens. Come into play tapped lands are pretty bad tempo loss in legacy.

    1-0 (2-0)

    Round 2 - Matty (Sneak/Tell)

    Game 1: Oh we get paired up again and this must have been the 5th time we've played against each other with the same deck and I'm expecting to get stomped since he's always been able to clear my board with a turn 2 Through the Breach into some Eldrazi. This game however, he has to mull to 5 and I didn't have a particular fast hand either but I did have 1 Goblin Guide and 3 bolt spells but only 1 mountain. I proceed to rip a 2nd mountain from the top of my deck and was able to get him down to 10 life on turn 2. He has 2 non-basic lands on his turn 3 and I was able to attack him down to 8. Tried to Price him and he forced to go down to 7. Attacked him again on my turn to get him to 5 life and Priced and Fireblasted to win.

    Sideboard: -2 Sulfuric Vortex, +2 Pyrostatic Pillar

    Game 2: He had to mull to 5 again and I kept an ok hand. I had another turn 1 Goblin Guide and attacked. Next turn, he played a land and passed and I played a land, attacked with a guide and cast Magma Jet. Saw another Goblin Guide so I kept that. next turn, he just played another land and passed. I drew the Goblin Guide cast it to attack for 4 and then played a Pillar. I then ended up casting some bolts to hit myself for 2 a couple of times to get him down low enough and he just kept playing lands.

    Apparently both games, he has kept of drawing lands and sneak/show/breach but couldn't draw any big dudes. Kind of disappointing but I'll take any win against this deck.

    2-0 (4-0)

    Round 3 - Wilkin (Deadguy w/Vial)

    Game 1: Again, it sucks playing against a friend but we're both the only 2-0s and can't afford to draw into top 4 so we play it out. I have my usual start with turn 1 Goblin Guide and he's got turn 1 Aether Vial. However, he was stuck on 2 lands after turn 2 so he wasn't able use the equipment he fetched with Stoneforge Mystic as fast. I was able to burn out the creatures he played and then was able to bolt, bolt, fireblast after he was at 10 life.

    Sideboard: -4 Goblin Guide, -2 Grim Lavamancer, +3 Smash to Smithereens, +3 Searing Blaze

    Game 2: I had an ok hand and was able to bolt him down to 11 after turn 2. However, on his turn 3, all he had was a plains and an Aether Vial at one so I just Smashed the Vial and he scooped as he had no more lands and was relying on the Vial to apply pressure.

    3-0 (6-0)

    Round 4 - Jamie (U/R/g Pyromancer Ascension combo)

    I was watching this combo deck throughout the day and it was really interesting to see this deck ported from Standard. It played all of the 1cc blue card filter spells like Brainstorm, Preordain, Ponder, Serum Visions, had mana filter and draw in Mana Morphose and had Burning Wish into Regrowth for Mana Morphose and Regrowth for infinite mana and storm and killed with Grapeshot. It's kind of a convoluted kill but hey, whatever floats your boat. I was paired down against him as I was 1st after 3 rounds but I had played the 2nd through 4th place players and he was in 5th as the last of the 6 pointers. So he had to play to try to get into top 4 and I had to dream crush him to get my friend into the top 4.

    Game 1: I kept an awful hand as I thought his deck comboed kind of slow. I had a Goblin Guide, 4 lands, a bolt, and a Magma Jet. I cracked a fetch, cast a guide, passed the turn. He didn't do much other than trying to filter with Preordain. I drew another fetch, cracked it, cast Magma Jet. Scryed and saw 2 MORE LANDS on top of my library and shipped it to the bottom. Passed the turn and he did more filtering and played a Pyromancer Ascension with a Rite of Flame. I drew into yet another land and really didn't do much and slowly got him down to 6 life with the goblin guide alone. He was finally able to get Pyromancer Ascension active while he was a 6 and tried to combo off but forgot to get a green mana to Regrowth and I topdecked another land and lost next turn. I had around 7 lands in play at the end of this game and played only 4 spells. *sigh* That's magic.

    Sideboard: -2 Sulfuric Vortex, -1 Grim Lavamancer, +1 Chalice of the Void, +2 Pyrostatic Pillar

    Game 2: He had to mull to 5 this game and it wasn't even close. I had the turn 1 Goblin Guide again and he kept on filtering with his draw spells but couldn't find a Pyromancer Ascension in time and I burned him out fast.

    Game 3: This game was really interesting as he dazed my turn 1 Goblin Guide but didn't have an answer to my turn 2 Pyrostatic Pillar. However, we were both at 20 life so I would be getting hurt trying to bolt him too. I then bolted him twice on turn 3, with me taking 4 and him taking 6. He then cast a couple of Ponders/Preordains taking an additional 4 to go down to 10. Meanwhile, I had 3 mana up and had 2 Volcanic Fallouts in hand along with a Price which was useless because he had all basics and a Fireblast. I then forget to Fallout at the end of his turn and draw into another land. He fetched at the end of his turn and
    passed and I started casting my Fallouts. So I took 4 and he took 2 and life totals were now 11-7 in my favor. I drew into yet another Fallout and passed the turn. he decided to Burning Wish for a Hull Breach but had no green source and took 2 more life to drop to 5 life. End of his turn, I cast my 2nd Fallout and took 4 damage to his 2. Life totals dropped to 5 life for me and 3 life for him. I drew in to some junk so I has to tap 2 mountains and sac them to Fireblast, he cast Force of Will removing a blue card to go down to 2 and I cast my last Fallout for the win and was left at 1 life.

    And yes, I dealt 18 damage to myself with the pillars that game and 1 damage from a fetchland. Casting 3 Fallouts where I
    take 4 damage and he takes 2 is amazingly bad. it's like a reverse Psionic Blast/Char. However, the Pillars probably saved me as well as it probably prevented him from comboing off on turns 3-5.

    4-0 (8-1)

    Hooray, made top 4 and so did my friend. Top 4 ended up being Burn, Sneak/Tell, Cheerios, Deadguy w/Vial. We decided to prize split as the store offered us $125 each which was freaking amazing considering we paid $30 to enter and there was only 12 of us. I'm definately going back to OMG Games next time they have a tournament.

    Afterthoughts:

    - The one Chalice was pretty cute and actually made an impact in the one matchup I needed it. But I'll probably replace it with another Pillar as one Chalice isn't really reliable.
    - Pyrostatic Pillar performed way, way better than I had expected. Definately a 3 of in the sideboard the next time. Still need to see if it's good against storm combos like ANT or TES though.
    - Didn't use Blood Moon or Null Rod the entire day so I'm still unsure about those slots. Will have to leave it in to test it out.

  2. #2

    Re: [Burn] Double Report from tournaments at World's Collide and OMG Games

    Chalice of the Void in Burn? I hate to be the one to stifle innovation but that's just horrible.

  3. #3

    Re: [Burn] Double Report from tournaments at World's Collide and OMG Games

    Quote Originally Posted by Amon Amarth View Post
    Chalice of the Void in Burn? I hate to be the one to stifle innovation but that's just horrible.
    LOL. I don't know what I hated more about Chalice...the fact it's in the burn deck or having only 1 in the board and no way to tutor for it.

    I think Pillar was crazy that day, it can really hurt Storm decks. Does hurt you as well, LOL reverse Psionic Blast for the win.

    Still tweaking the Deadguy Vial deck. Got to find one more Stoneforge Mystic to make it 4.



    I must say Jamie's Ascension deck was interesting. It managed to combo against me game 2 (I won in 3). I wonder if he ran Careful Study and/or Price of Progress. I think Progress would be insane in his deck since it's mostly basic lands and fetches. Imagine a progress with active Pyromancer Ascension.....he could kill a player at 20 life if opponent has 5 non-basics on board.

  4. #4
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    Re: [Burn] Double Report from tournaments at World's Collide and OMG Games

    Quote Originally Posted by Amon Amarth View Post
    Chalice of the Void in Burn? I hate to be the one to stifle innovation but that's just horrible.
    Well, the thought was that I would play it again storm decks so usually Chalice would be set to zero although if I got a hand with 2 Chalices and 1 Goblin Guide, I wouldn't mind playing a Chalice for 0 and Goblin Guide on turn 1 and then next turn Chalice for 1 on turn 2. Who cares if you can't cast 30% of your spells when they can't cast like 60% of their spells and you're dealing damage with the guide each turn.

    I do agree that I don't find it very optimal either which is why I've taken it out of my sideboard for now.

  5. #5

    Re: [Burn] Double Report from tournaments at World's Collide and OMG Games

    Pillar is hands down better as Combo hate. Playing Chalice in Burn is like playing Perish in Zoo. It's not a question of it being optimal. You're opponent will stop and say thank you. You've made his job much easier.

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