[Primer/Deck] Burn

[Stuart]

Only I'd use Faerie Macabre over Leylines.

Played Burn last night with 4 Faeries in the board, as a local guy’s been on RB Reanimator lately. I ran into him last night and lost 1-2. I won game 2 off the back of Faerie, which felt great. However, a point of concern: Faerie makes for weird mull decisions. In game 3, I had a great 7 with no Faerie, so I decided to go to 6. 6 was the same, so I went to 5. Still no Faerie, but I kept because I figured that if I kept mulling I wouldn’t have enough Burn to win. Of course I lost handily because 5 cards + no grave hate doesn’t stand a fucking chance against Reanimator.

Leyline is mentally easier, because you can commit to going all in for it and knowing it’s strong enough to be worth it. If you’re playing Faerie (or any other grave hate), knowing when to keep and when to mull gets a lot harder. And we all know that Burn should never make you think .

[scaryrawr]

Played Burn last night with 4 Faeries in the board, as a local guy’s been on RB Reanimator lately. I ran into him last night and lost 1-2. I won game 2 off the back of Faerie, which felt great. However, a point of concern: Faerie makes for weird mull decisions. In game 3, I had a great 7 with no Faerie, so I decided to go to 6. 6 was the same, so I went to 5. Still no Faerie, but I kept because I figured that if I kept mulling I wouldn’t have enough Burn to win. Of course I lost handily because 5 cards + no grave hate doesn’t stand a fucking chance against Reanimator.

Leyline is mentally easier, because you can commit to going all in for it and knowing it’s strong enough to be worth it. If you’re playing Faerie (or any other grave hate), knowing when to keep and when to mull gets a lot harder. And we all know that Burn should never make you think .

Yeah... I tend to just give up our really bad match ups. I'd rather improve all my other ones, especially with delver and miracles back on the rise and Czech Pile still being so popular. Reanimator tends to not show up too much in my meta (all the Deathrite Shamans running around). Like you said, permanent graveyard hate tends to feel better (I use to do 2 Faerie Macabre and 2 Grafdigger's Cage I'm trying out 2 Faeries and 2 Surgical Extractions). I change my feeling though, sometimes I try to side to fight the really bad match ups.

[Mr. Safety]

Any reason why Tormod's Crypt wouldn't be a good option? On the draw against reanimator you can just lose (been there, done that) but if you're on the play or they don't have the t1, Crypt can be incredibly good. Similar to Faerie, because it's free you can continue your game plan. Crypt has incredible use against storm as well, a matchup that can be a roll of the dice. In my metagame, there's almost always at least 1-2 dredge players, regardless of where the format is positioned.

[B is for Big Job]

Any reason why Tormod's Crypt wouldn't be a good option? On the draw against reanimator you can just lose (been there, done that) but if you're on the play or they don't have the t1, Crypt can be incredibly good. Similar to Faerie, because it's free you can continue your game plan. Crypt has incredible use against storm as well, a matchup that can be a roll of the dice. In my metagame, there's almost always at least 1-2 dredge players, regardless of where the format is positioned.

It is one of the better options but I believe it's because of the off chance it can be Pithing Needled in game 3 if it gets that far, which would also require siding in Smash or other hate for said Needle(if you knew Needle was coming in). Either way the deck is hamstrung by having to mull to GY hate in the opening hand and mulling until you find some regardless if its Leyline, Faerie, or Crypt. *2 cents has been deposited*

[scaryrawr]

Any reason why Tormod's Crypt wouldn't be a good option? On the draw against reanimator you can just lose (been there, done that) but if you're on the play or they don't have the t1, Crypt can be incredibly good. Similar to Faerie, because it's free you can continue your game plan. Crypt has incredible use against storm as well, a matchup that can be a roll of the dice. In my metagame, there's almost always at least 1-2 dredge players, regardless of where the format is positioned.

It's not a bad option. The two biggest things against it are it's sorcery speed and Chancellor of the Annex. I think it's also the big reason we see Faerie Macabre and Leyline of the Void being the more common choices of graveyard hate because it doesn't matter if you're on the play or draw. Being a 0 drop, I think it's really nice on the play against Chancellor though.

I'm thinking of running without graveyard hate here soon though. I got turned one multiple times against Storm, and I haven't seen too much reanimator in the Seattle meta. I think with Miracles making a come back, I want to increase my number of Exquisite Firecraft and am actually thinking of putting Flame Rift in the side to just try going faster against non interactive match ups.

[IamHANDSOME]

has anybody ever tested a single copy of Thunderous Wrath main?

[scaryrawr]

has anybody ever tested a single copy of Thunderous Wrath main?

I've gold-fished with it, but I haven't actually played it, I think I tried it once in pauper burn though just to make a point (I'm bias against the card).

I think it works better in a UR Delver build since they have access to Brainstorm and can set it up.

The other thing I don't like is that it can mess up your lines, when you draw it, you have to play it, otherwise you'll never be able to play it (unless you horribly flood and the game goes long). Sometimes you have to Searing Blaze or jam Sulfuric Vortex, and then! You draw Thunderous Wrath... what do you do?

I think if you're playing Sullivan's Burn, it might be worth cutting a mountain for 1, since I think the main board is designed to just point everything at the face, and 20 mountains seems a little too much to me.

[mistercakes]

it's likely strictly worse than regular burn builds, but if you like prowess and miracle effect in mono red you can try something like this


4 lightning bolt
4 chain lightning
4 fireblast
4 price of progress
2 thunderous wrath
4 rift bolt
4 goblin guide
4 eidolon of the great revel
4 monastery swiftspear
4 urza's bauble
4 mishra's bauble
9 mountain
3 arid mesa
3 scalding tarn
3 bloodstained mire


you can even mishra's bauble yourself and if you don't see it you can crack a fetch or choose to spend your mana more efficiently.

so this build is lacking the searing blaze, lava spike, and grim lavamancer from the traditional build. i suppose if you're in a heavy creature metagame i would prefer the blaze and lavamancer.

[Ronald Deuce]

has anybody ever tested a single copy of Thunderous Wrath main?

I can think of a number of good ways to optimize Wrath's Miracle effect in decks that manipulate their top cards, but the major problem with Wrath is that you can't do anything realistic with it if you don't topdeck it. I don't like the risk of drawing it in our openers, and we don't have any good ways to shed it if it's there.

The thought of running it had definitely crossed my mind, but if you're looking for bang-for-buck one-drops, why not use Vexing Devil (which has its own issues)?

[Mulldrifter4U]

Looking at the 19th place list from this weekend's challenge https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...nge-2017-12-25, I wanted to discuss Karakas as a sideboard option. It seems like it is a partial replacement for graveyard hate, as the biggest problem card from reanimator is Iona. It also helps out immensely with sneak and show, which I currently do not have anything in my board for (it isn't popular in my local meta) and on rare occasion can bounce a marit lage.

Is Karakas a viable sideboard card or is it better left to faerie/leyline and hoping to dodge SnS?

[IamHANDSOME]

I can think of a number of good ways to optimize Wrath's Miracle effect in decks that manipulate their top cards, but the major problem with Wrath is that you can't do anything realistic with it if you don't topdeck it. I don't like the risk of drawing it in our openers, and we don't have any good ways to shed it if it's there.

The thought of running it had definitely crossed my mind, but if you're looking for bang-for-buck one-drops, why not use Vexing Devil (which has its own issues)?

My idea behind Thunderous Wrath in Burn:
There are 2 scenarios in the game you cannot cast it. If its in your opening hand or if its the first card you draw being on the draw at the beginning of the match. In Burn you almost never have to go for mulligans since it is a very very consistent deck so I think you can afford to play maybe 1 mulligan a day if you compare the probability for having it in your opening hand. In all the other situations you will play it for sure!
Postboard you ALWAYS board it out since we never want draw our boarded cards but have to play a mulligan because Wrath is in our opening hand. Or sometimes you are facing Batterskull which didnt attack yet, you must play Sulfuric Vortex but cant because you topdeck Thunderous Wrath (in that case you can remove the Batterskull token with Thunderous Wrath but still this scenario could handicap you). Also as more "hate cards" such as Vortex, Searing Blaze or Exquisite Firecraft are in your main deck, you probably preparing for a special meta and will not play it. The list Im referring to is this one:

4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
2 Flame Rift
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Thunderous Wrath
12 Mountain
8 red Fetchlands

For example in my meta there are quite a lot of combo decks such as Storm, Reanimator, Show and Tell, "Big Eldrazi", Sneak Attack, Food Chain, etc. which cards like Searing Blaze, Grim Lavamancer or Exquisite Firecraft main are simply not that good. So I definitely play Flame Rift for making more damage because nobody is able to win the race against me (in a meta full of Delver decks and mirrors Flame Rift gets really shitty). Since you never really want to draw more than 2 of them maximum you easily take out 1-2 for a single copy of Thunderous Wrath and another card of your choice. I always go for Vortex, I just love this card, but this is just an personal preferences. When sideboarding in most of the matches I board Thunderous Wrath out. In the main build it works quite good because we do not interact with Grim Lavamancer or Searing Blaze anyway !

[Ace/Homebrew]

Is Karakas a viable sideboard card or is it better left to faerie/leyline and hoping to dodge SnS?

Karakas is a viable sideboard card. It has appeared in the sideboard of more than just Burn to combat strategies that cheat fatties into play. I would be interested in hearing how that player sideboards when they're boarding in 4 Karakas...
TCDecks has lists with copies in the sideboard: http://tcdecks.net/results.php?token...ide=&strict=on

RE: Thunderous Wrath
Miracle cards (the mechanic, not the deck) are pretty terrible if you don't play Brainstorm. Having said that, it occasionally shows up in a Burn list on TCDecks.
http://tcdecks.net/results.php?token...ide=&strict=on

[scaryrawr]

Looking at the 19th place list from this weekend's challenge https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...nge-2017-12-25, I wanted to discuss Karakas as a sideboard option. It seems like it is a partial replacement for graveyard hate, as the biggest problem card from reanimator is Iona. It also helps out immensely with sneak and show, which I currently do not have anything in my board for (it isn't popular in my local meta) and on rare occasion can bounce a marit lage.

Is Karakas a viable sideboard card or is it better left to faerie/leyline and hoping to dodge SnS?

It's definitely "viable", but you really want to side board for your expected meta. Reanimator is currently hiding and waiting for the meta to be too comfortable not expecting it (I'm told the chat is planning on spiking the April GP, especially with new Miracles on the rise, Maverick and other decks coming back, seems good). Show and Tell I feel will always just be bad, even if you have Karakas, they might go off through sneak attack or omniscience, etc. I'd rather battle it with cards that are more useful in other match ups as well. Graveyard hate is good against Life from the Loam decks, Dredge, etc. Pyroblast can be useful against blue decks, Ensnaring Bridge can be useful against elves, reanimator, and Lands as well (as well as some other decks with beaters (there's a video where Patrick Sullivan brings it in against RUG Delver to make RUG Delver side board for Ensnaring Bridge where he takes it out after his opponent had seen it)). I do think Karakas is probably better than Ashen Rider, but I feel Ashen Rider is more fun as dedicated hate...

[Mulldrifter4U]

I'll check out that video later; I hadn't thought about ensnaring bridge against delver. I'm just always a little unsure of a sideboard at larger events. My local meta is super fair, so I typically have 8 searing blaze/blood in the 75 which goes well. Not ideal for anything larger though.
Edit: I always have 4 smash to smithereens, chalice is miserable.

[scaryrawr]

Has anyone thought of just splashing blue for 4 Brainstorms? I think it feels bad with Eidolon of the Great Revel. But like, maybe take out Lava Spike for them? Or a mix of Lava Spike and Rift Bolt? It also gives access to Flusterstorm in the side.

I remember running a 1 of Sensei's Divining Top which actually felt really nice mid to late game, especially since you could always float an instant, and it made Jace, the Mind Sculptor less miserable, also was great since you could dig for Smash to Smithereens if you got it out before opponent lands Chalice of the Void.

I'm mixed on it myself, I don't really want to try it (I'm kind of a purist of every card should be red)... I want someone else to try it and tell me it's amazing. I just feel at times when we're top decking and have a bunch of land in hand pretending we have it, that being able to Brainstorm for actual gas would be pretty sweet. I don't want to go down the path of UR Delver, I feel that deck is full of too many cantrips and not enough gas. I feel it would just be a late game card for us, where we always use it for that "Perfect Brainstorm."

[Ronald Deuce]

Has anyone thought of just splashing blue for 4 Brainstorms?

I don't feel like it would really do anything for us, though I definitely feel the frustration of drawing land after land when we just need one more spell. I feel like the game's gotten away from us already by the time it would do anything for us, and I don't like the idea of fetching for a Volc when we're interested in finding something heavy-duty like Price of Progress or we're trying to push through under an Eidolon of our own making.

Interested to hear whether anyone has tried it, though!

[IamHANDSOME]

Interested to hear whether anyone has tried it, though!

I tried it and it does not work. The reason for this is that Burn behaves a little bit like a combo deck because the gameplan is soooo monotonical. You dont have room for non burn or non haste creatures, Burns gameplan is super strict. Burn can only win through Burn or Burn like creatures. Because of this there is nothing better to find with a Brainstorm than an other Burn spell, but for Brainstorm you can allready play the burn spell instead which you are looking for in the first place. This is why the card doesnt do anything because you dont have more to offer than Burn spells. The scenario of playing Brainstorm and fetching lands away which allready cost you a card (Brainstorm) should be pretty rare, thats why you run 19-20 lands and fetchlands to thin out your library. And playing Brainstorm only to have a higher chance for finding your sideboard cards is not how the deck works.

Also I tried Magma Jet and even this sucks 90% of the time. I always asked myself before playing Magma Jet: "Which cards do I wanna scry, which cards do I wanna find?" 1 out of 10 games I wanted to find PoP instead of Lightning Bolt or Fireblast instead of Goblin Guide. But since I allready spent 2 mana for 2 damage which is pretty weak I allready lost 1-2 damage which could have won me the game in the first place. All of these cards such as Brainstorm, Magma Jet etc. will cost you a card with none or very little damage and does not reward you at the end.

[GodzillaBig]

How do we feel about the new pseudo-snapcaster pirate? You think he may be worth testing as a 1 or 2 of?

GB

[scaryrawr]

How do we feel about the new pseudo-snapcaster pirate? You think he may be worth testing as a 1 or 2 of?

GB

People brought this up on the LavaSpike sub reddit.

• What match ups does it benefit? What spell does the opponent have that you're really after?
• What are you taking out for it?
• What's the expected amount of damage out of it? Our goal is for every cards to do a minimum of 3 damage, that way if we resolve 7 spells we win.
• How is it better than Ash Zealot, Harsh Mentor, Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, Abbot of Keral Keep, Kari Zev, Skyship Raider, etc? Everything at the 2 drop slot is really trying to be at the same level as Eidolon of the Great Revel, there are many good 2 drop red creatures, most of which don't see play.
• Even though it's a 2 drop, it's really competing for your 3/4 drop slot, which I'd at least want 4 damage off of it then.

I'd say if you want to try it, give it a chance, but I think it's better to consider some of the other 2 drops in red first.

[ThomasDowd]

Have people still been liking swiftspear with how it seems like the format is swinging back to be more creature focused? or do i have a bad read on how prevalent creatures are right now?

if creatures are more prevalent what have y'all been playing in those slots?