[Deck] Burn

[Zilla]

Alright, putting aside Browbeat completely, let's discuss your proposed build in general. And understand I'm not asking this to pick a fight. In the current metagame, assuming a predominance of Thresh, Solidarity, Goblins, and a lot of other aggro-control, what build are you running exactly, what does it beat and what does it lose to?

[SuckerPunch]

That's an interesting question, given that you already know that the only difference between our builds is Browbeat. So it's just a round about way of talking about Browbeat isn't it. It's pretty late so I'll keep it brief but I'll indulge the question.


Hi I want to share my decklist and thoughts with you on burn:

19 mountain
4 bolts
4 chains
4 lava spike
4 moggs
4 spark elementals
4 flame rift
4 flamebreak
4 magma jet
4 fireblast
3 incenerate
2 price of progress

BOARD:
2 price of progress
3 crypt
3 needle
3 shattering spree
4 sirocco


This is my burn list. I play both spark elementals and mogg because they have different but equal uses. mogg is great early, but often dead lategame. spark elemental is almost always great, he is lavaspike 5-8. I think he is a better draw lategame, than mogg is, cause he is likely to do more damage. The only thing he doesn't like is burn or removal. no creatures wants to block this guy, except for werebear, but he is often turned sideways, so it doesn't matter. You can just play him when your opponent is tapped out, and if your opponent has tons of removal, then side him out g2 and side him in again in g3.

I will go over a few matchups:

GRO:
This is a favourable matchup. ALWAYS play around daze. and always shoot at the dome unless they have mage naming: flamebreak, which is your key-card in this matchup.

SB: -3 incenerate, -2 spark elementals, +2 price of progress, +3 crypts.

After board it gets even better. same tactic as preboard, play around daze and finish off with prize for 6-8 :) the good thing in this matchup is that the GRO-player will have to make a decision: aggresive or denfensive. If he commits creatures to the board, he cannot counter stuff or search with cantrips. If he doesn't commit to the board, he will lose the attrition war. I just love when a GRO-player FoW's a lava spike :)

GOBLINS:
this is NOT a favourable matchup. Mogg, magma jet, and flamebreak are your friends in this matchup, if you don't have at least 1 of them in your startinghand you should take a mulligan. I find this matchup is all the about the diceroll. You will have to do a lot of math in these games, but always have burn up for a hasty little piledriver!

SB: -3 flame rifts, +3 needle/+3 shattering spree

board needle if he only runs vials, borad spree if he runs vials AND chalize. The matchup have not changed much preboard, since they probraly don't have anything in their board for you, except for chalize or armageddon.

SOLIDARITY:
Not much to say about this matchup. Goldfish. unfavourable. they are quicker than you. they get turn 4 ´kills more consistanly than you. key to this matchup: diceroll and them fucking up there mana, with 4 fetchlands:)

SB: -4 flamebreaks, -2 price of progress, +4 sirocco, +2 needle.

Sirocco is sooo good vs. solidarity. But i began to think if pyrostatic pillar is better?! it is also good against gro, but I have not tested yet. if sirocco resolves, you have a fair chance otherwise you are doomed.
A lot of players seems to be playing solidarity these days, if they are new to the deck, you could maybe fit in some Gaes's blessings in the board. these will probrably make problems for inexperienced players.

DEATHGUY:
this is about even. If they get crazy discard and ld draw you are behind. If they get creature draw :) you are glad. for god sake, let dark confidant live. he often costs them 3-5 life. magma jet is the only spells in our main that should target creatures in this matchup.

SB: none I think. he is problaly only playing 8 nonbasic lands, and if he is a talented player he will only fetch 1 dual at a time, so I think 2 price of progress is just fine.


These are my experinces and thought of the deck. I don't feel my sb is optimal. has anyone tried pyrostatic pillar? maybe needle should be cut. shattering spree seems more versatile. give me some respond.

This is near identical to the build I'm currently using sans a variable sideboard. And it should answer most of your question without requiring that I stay up longer. Spark Elemental was a recent addition for me but one that I've been pleased with. It was the fourth Incinerate and a couple of Thunderbolt just a little while back.

Burn (any build) in general is a rather poor deck in this environment. I think you know that. It has bad matchups against common decks like Goblins and Solidarity. Given that, I've been happy to have a build that beats Gro and can at times race solidarity and goblins and fares well against a lot of fast random decks including nonSolidarity combo decks, Reanimator, Gamekeeper and such.

I suspect that is a bit harder if you are running higher cc spells like Browbeat that also give your opponent another turn to abuse Ill gotten Gains or kill you with that Akroma or DSC.

If you somehow think that your build does well against Goblins and/or Solidarity (my two main problem matchups) in spite of Browbeat giving your opponent another turn to kill you, I would love to hear about it or your build's matchups in general.

[lillelassie]

regarding my build I have been thinking about replacing either 2 spark elementals or 2 incenerates with 2 fork. which seems great with fireblast :)
But also good against cards you really dont like, fx hymn to tourach. occasionly it can act as a counter spell against gro and solidarity, or you can draw into fireblast via a meditate, or redirect a remanded brainfreeze or strokes. it seems to me that it has a couple of interesting uses in the deck.

I'd like to see your build zilla if you happen to have one around :)

[Zilla]

That's an interesting question, given that you already know that the only major differences between our builds is Browbeat. So it's just a round about way of talking about Browbeat isn't it. Fine, I'll indulge the question.
Chill. I don't run Spark Elemental or Flamebreak, and I don't always maindeck PoP. I run Incinerate as a 4-of and Browbeat as a 3-of and I typically only run 3 Flamebreak in the main. I told you I wasn't trying to pick a fight, so I'll ask you the same courtesy.

Part of the reason I choose to run Browbeat is because I consider most of the alternatives to be subpar, so I admit it's impossible to completely ignore the topic, but I'll do my best.


This is near identical to the build I'm currently using sans a variable sideboard. Spark Elemental was a recent addition for me but one that I've been pleased with. It was the fourth Incinerate and a couple of Thunderbolt just a little while back.
This goes against conventional wisdom, in that it makes your opponent's creatures and creature removal relevant where it wouldn't be otherwise. How thoroughly have you tested Spark Elemental against similarly fast aggro like Zoo and Goblins, as well as decks packing otherwise useless spot removal like Darkblast?


Burn (any build) in general is a rather poor deck in this environment. It has bad matchups against common decks like Goblins and Solidarity.
It actually has a positive matchup against Goblins if it's built for it.


Given that, I've been happy to have a build that beats Gro
How specifically do you beat them when it has been classically considered one of Burn's worst matchups? This isn't a rhetorical question... I'm curious what interactions you feel have been improved and why.


I suspect that this is a bit harder if you are running higher cc spells like Browbeat that also give your opponent another turn to abuse Ill gotten Gains or kill you with that Akroma or DSC.
We already agree that Browbeat is bad in the combo matchup. This is a given. The problem is that the alternatives (Flame Rift, Spark Elemental) are worse against random aggro in my experience, for reasons already discussed. Flame Rift is arguably better in the control (Wombat/Rifter/Train Wreck, etc.) matchups, but Spark Elemental is much worse. Given that the format is still primarily aggro with a smattering of combo and the even more occasional control, it doesn't seem like Flame Rift and Spark Elemental are foregone conclusions, which is the underlying reason why we're having this discussion in the first place.


If you somehow think that your build does well against Goblins and/or Solidarity (my two main problem matchups) in spite of Browbeat giving your opponent another turn to kill you, I would love to hear about it.
We already agree that Browbeat is bad against Solidarity. You're going to have a very tough time convincing me that Flame Rift and Spark Elemental are good in the Goblins matchup, however. Spark Elemental gives them targets for Sharpshooter, Gempalm, and Mogg Fanatic, all of which are relatively useless otherwise. Flame Rift, as previously mentioned, actually helps them win the damage race, and lowers the likelihood you'll live long enough to cast Flamebreak, which is the biggest reason you beat them.

I would honestly rather have Browbeat than either Flame Break or Spark Elemental in the Goblins matchup, no joke. Sure, it can theoretically buy them an extra turn, but Spark Elemental almost certainly will too. It's important to understand that in the Goblins matchup, Burn is the control deck. Therefore, a slightly slower, less vulnerable threat is more than acceptable here.

[Finn]

spark elemental is almost always great, he is lavaspike 5-8. I think he is a better draw lategame, than mogg is, cause he is likely to do more damage. The only thing he doesn't like is burn or removal. no creatures wants to block this guy, except for werebear, but he is often turned sideways, so it doesn't matter. You can just play him when your opponent is tapped out, and if your opponent has tons of removal, then side him out g2 and side him in again in g3.

I realize that I'm quoting a quote, but I have heard this argument before. I don't think it works. I do not side out my Swords to Plowshares against Burn. They are decent life gain when turned on your own, but they are also useful in handling a first turn Fanatic. Against control, where there are few blockers, he can get through a number of times otherwise. It would be my pleasure to use it on Spark Elemental as well.

[SuckerPunch]

Sorry that I took a while to respond, I had to go back and play a couple more games against Thres to try and figure out why I manage to do well against the deck as I didn't understand that myself considering how horrible burn used to be against the blue based control decks around when I first started playing magic.

I think a lot of others make the same mistake of thinking that Thres has a base akin to those old school blue based control decks, that ran about 20-24 counterspells, making it near impossible for the burn player (who back then didn't have as many efficent burn spells as they do today) to resolve much of anything. Thres is nothing like that. It runs cards (FoWs and fetchlands) that deal damage to itself so you need to resolve one or two less burn spells, it only runs 6 hard counters, it plays a lot of cards like Pithing Needle that are worthless against you, it spends much of the early game playing cantrips, and it runs a manabase that is very vulnerable to Ankh and PoP.

Zilla, I really amn't sure why you think Gro is one of Burns worst matchups. Have you tested the matchup with something akin to lille's build?

Perhaps it's that you're using higher cc cards which makes it harder to play around Daze.

I grant you that it's not an easy matchup, but it definately feels like it's in my favor.

And I also grant you there are two cards, that really hurt you, Worship and Counterbalance, but fortunately, I seem to be the only one that plays either card. I mean no one even runs Worship in the side it seems like, which is just sad and goes to show how little impact Burn has on the meta. Check out any Gro deck that was run in any recent tournaments if you believe me (most thres players just netdeck from those builds).

But aside from these cards, I rarely feel threatened by Gro.

They only run 6 hard counters, and 4 Daze which are very easy to play around when you're running a low curve.

They spend far too much of the early game playing cantrips, trying to reach threshold and find more counterspells. Time you spend getting them into single digits of life while they are desperately try to find a way to stabilize and are left wondering why everyone cut Worship from thres so long ago when they realize there really no means to stabilize for them other than pray that they draw everyone of the 6 hard counters they do play to stop the 41 burn spells that you play.

It's usually turn 4-5 when their creatures are actual threats, and by 7-8 when their damage starts actually worrying you. But the game usually doesn't last that long.

But also, there own spells do some of the work for you. Between the damage they take from their own Force of Wills and Fetchlands, it usually figures into 1-2 burn spells you need to resolve, which is usually about how many burn spells they manage to counter. Even when they Force a burn of yours, they still took a damage, and lost two cards.

They have a very hard time stabilizing against you. They have no Jitte for life gain, and I seem to be the only Thres player running Worship either MD or SB. They're usually forced to use up all their countermagic just to survive to the midgame with life totals in the single digits. And that's when your bombs start hitting them.

I rarely even worry about their creatures but should they get thres and into the later midgame Flamebreak clears their board even after threshold, (it doesn't target so there goes Mongoose, and Fanatic or Magma Jet makes quick work of Werebear). That's why Flamebreak is often countered by their very last counterspell leaving them at the mercy of Flame Rift and Fireblast.

Flame Rift is rock solid against them because they really can't keep up in the damage race. Spark Elemental is quite good too, as its a while before they get Threshold, so if you draw/play it in the first three/four turns, which you do it seems like 80% of the time, it get's in a lot of damage, trampling over any blocker.

When you bring in your 4x Ankhs and get up to a full playset of Price of Progress from the side, they simply have too many bombs (Flamebreak, Flame Rift, Ankh, PoP, Fireblast) to worry about for their 6 hard counters.

Few gro decks even play any sideboard cards that hate burn, which is real nice for you.

Note, I'm making the matchup sound a lot more favorable than it is, bc, I'm recalling the various reasons why I beat it. It's really not that lopsided, but Gro is def a favorable matchup.

Test it out with a build like lille's, if you don't believe me. But be sure to test a typical build, not some weird outlier that runs 4 Worship/Counterbalance.

Perhaps this is the best way to sum up the matchup. Their own fetchlands and Forces bring them down to 17 life atleast (usually it's closer to 16 or 15 life). So you usually only need to resolve 5 spells to win assuming one or two of those five spells include Flame Rift, Fireblast, PoP or Ankh post sideboard. And they only have 6 hard counters, and four easy to play around counters, and four very vulnerable Mages, to try and stop your 41 burn spells.

If you have indeeded tested the matchup yourself with a build akin to lille's and found it not generally in burn's favor, I really cant offer any sort of response or explanation except state that my testing disagrees.

If you want details, I went 6-3 against UGW thres (w/o Worship/Counterbalance - which is fair considering that not a single one of the UGW versions at any recent tourneys ran either card) today. But I suspect that the actual ratio is closer to 60/40, based on the past.

[spiderfreak]

I dont like Burn, but when I play it I play 341 A.K.A Three For One.

8 Mountain
3 Badland
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Spark Elementals
4 Lava Spike
4 Chains
4 Bolts
4 Dark Confidant
4 Magma Jet
4 Incenerate
4 Price of progress
3 Fork
4 Fireblast

SB:
3 REB
4 Pyroclasm
4 Crash
4 Rain of Gore

I just put Dark Confidant in it cuz "I get hit for 1 you get hit for 3"

Rain of Gore, cuz you loes to life gain.

Crash, cuz you loes to "COTV for 1"

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Hm... I don't agree with the Rain Of Gore in the sideboard. You may lose to infinite life combo or savage life gain, but honestly, how many times are you going to run into these terrible decks at large tournaments? Ok, so they may be OK in a smaller more local meta, but in a large tourny, those Rain Of Gores should be switched to Pyrostatic Pillar, simply because Solidarity is actually relevant and it isn't a super match-up for you either. Other than that, I like the clever deck name avec Dark Confidant.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Spark Elemental is trash in this format.

Spark Elemental is just trash, period.

1) Spark Elemental is a bad choice mana-wise.If your Spark Elemental is goes unblocked and unsworded/burned/edict/fog 67% of the time then it only has an average mana to damage ratio of 1:2 or the same as a Shock. Against some matchups your success rate with SE is a lot lower than 67%.

2) Spark Elemental is a bad choice tactically. Spark Elemental cannot target, at least the Shock could take out a lackey/bob in a pinch.

In other words, if you are playing Spark Elemental you are not playing a watered down Lightning Bolt, you are playing a watered down Shock!

[Sea R Hill]

What do you think about Cave-In instead of Flamebreak?

It is almost as good against goblins and can be cast without mana.

[Meatwarz]

Sea R Hill, Running out of steam is the worst thing that could happen to Burn and Cave-ni makes it happen faster while not giving anything superb instead of Flamebreak.

And don't forget - Flamebreak also takes care of Nimble Mongoose and some other random aggro decks (kird ape eh).


Guys, i'am just interested, what do you thing about running 8 Baubles (4 Mishra's Bauble from CS) - this can make Fetches worth running and it also provides more consistant Turn 4 kill..

[SuckerPunch]

Whoa, the Baubles is definately a very interesting idea. I keep wondering about when Wizards will print more efficent burn spells. The baubles, unless you top deck them your fourth turn, are essentially just that, a way to cut the less efficent spells like Incinerate, Browbeat and Chain of Plasma.

Plus, running 8 Baubles, and 4 of the Red Artifact Lands, you could run Spark Elemental. You can even supplement it with Ankh MD but it's not neccesary.

Has anyone tried anything like this. Do you think it could work.

[Finn]

No, no one has ever tried that. (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3879&highlight=Finn)

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Hahahah Pwnedz0rs!!!

[SuckerPunch]

Sweet.

You really need to edit the burn list in your opening post on that thread Finn.

Shock!? Why in god's name would you run that card over 4 Flame Rift. I would also recommend cutting 4 Chain of Plasma to run 4 Flamebreak and 2 Price of Progress.

But mad props on the sweet idea. I'm going to try it.

P.S. I meant Shrapnel Blast, not Spark Elemental.

[Eldariel]

Your math is off. You can't really count the lost mountains as paid cards since they're only mana sources and you're only casting Fireblast for the kill most of the time anyways, so it essentially is 4 damage for 0 mana and 4 damage for 1 card, giving you by far the best ratios out of anything in the game. Shrapnel Blast is similar if you sacrifice Great Furnace, but if you end up sacrificing a Bauble, it's a problem since you spent 2 real cards (as opposed to cards that deal no damage spent with Fireblast) to deal 5 damage, giving you insufficient card ratio to kill with the first 11 cards (2.5 damage/card isn't enough when about 1/3rd of your deck is lands and deals 0).

But yea, with Bauble-version, Instant-speed is more relevant than normally, since you want to, especially on turn 4, cast all the cards you draw in opponent's upkeep right then. I'd run the minimum number of Sorceries in a Bauble-version for that very reason, but this thread isn't really for the talk on the Baubles since there's another thread for it...

[SuckerPunch]

xsock, i don't mean this as a flame, but just do you even play burn.

the idea of running shock instead flame rift completely misunderstands the point of burn. there's only a handful of 3 damage per mana spells. if your entire deck is going to be running just those, either your list is 40 cards, or you have some cards that no one else knows exist.

[Tinefol]

Have found the Bauble Burn much more consistent than original list. However all the weaknesses of original burn still stand.

[bigbear102]

Flame Rift is about 10000000 times better than Shock. If you think about it for more than about .001 seconds, then you will realize that 1 card dealing 4 damage is better than 2 cards dealing 4 damage. It is just better.

Bauble burn is interesting, I have been toying around with it and haven't really seen it to be any worse than a standard build, but haven't seen a lot of improvement either. Playing Confidant makes the deck a bit more susceptible to aggro, but also helps a lot of weak matchups that you need gas in.

[SuckerPunch]

Flame Rift is about 10000000 times better than Shock. If you think about it for more than about .001 seconds, then you will realize that 1 card dealing 4 damage is better than 2 cards dealing 4 damage. It is just better.


Exactly. There is absolutely no justification for running Shock over Flame Rift in a pure burn deck.

xsock, since you state that every card in burn should deal 3 damage for each mana and that Flame Rift sucks since it only deals 2 damage per each mana, I'm very interested to see what list you run, because aside from 16-20 cards including Fireblast and possibly Spark Elemental, there aren't any cards I can think of that deal 3 damage for each mana, or 6 damage for two, 9 damage for 3 et al. If there were such cards, I would agree with you that Flame Rift shouldn't be run over them. But the fact is, there aren't.

[Meatwarz]

Burn spells aren't considered good or bad for dmg/mana ratio. In this logic Incinerate and Magma Jet are both crap too..

Flame Rift is rather bad vs aggro decks (but sometimes is good too), but still great in other matches..

[SuckerPunch]

xsock, I suggested that Finn should run Flame Rift over Shock. You said that Flame Rift was a bad card and the only justification you gave was that...

"Flame Rift has a 2 to 1 damage to mana ratio, same as Shock."

So I was just curious, if you don't run any burn spells that have 2 to 1 damage to mana ratio or below, then what do you run, because not only does that rule out Flame Rift, it also rules out Incinerate, Thunderbolt, all but about 24 cards (and that's if you count cards like Fireblast, Spark Elemental and Price of Progress - which is a reach).

If you suggested that Flame Rift is a bad card because it's symmetrical (or some other reason), fine you can make that point. A point which I would argue isn't important, because burn consistently deals damage faster than any deck that doesn't autolose to Flamebreak or is based around Tendrils.

And that extra damage from Flame Rift wins games a full turn faster 40% of the time when compared to Chain of Plasma. But regardless, we could have had that debate as both of us would have had valid points on our side, points that have already been covered a hundred times, so I really don't feel like having this debate again. But nevertheless, you would have been making a valid point..

But that's not what you argued. You argued that it's a bad card because it has 2 to 1 damage to mana ratio. If that's the criteria you use when building a burn list, I was just wondering what cards you run in your 60 card deck.

[SuckerPunch]

So I was right, you infact don't play the deck, don't have a deck built, and even if you wanted to, you have no idea what your list would look like. That explains a lot of the abstract statements you made about cards.

I agree with you, burn isn't very viable now. But if this is the only deck you can afford and you want it to even have a small shot with all the combo floating around, you need to have a clock as fast as humanly possible. Burns number one priority is taking down the opponent's life total as fast as possible, not making sure every one of it's spells can target both players and creatures. I have found that having 20 spells that can target both players and creatures is plenty. And that 35-40% of the games that Flame Rift ends one turn earlier when compared to Chain of Plasma in it's place do matter.

Now don't get me wrong xsock, I don't mean any of this as an offense, and I'm not saying that you can't make a case as to why you like Chain of Plasma more than Flame Rift. I'm just saying that the way you argued it, that Flame Rift sucks because it only deals 2 damage per mana, isn't a valid argument for Flame Rift, and I am saying that you are also wrong to flat out say Flame Rift is crap. The one extra point of damage is the difference between winning on turn three (or four) or having to wait another turn over a third of the games you play. So very good deck builders and burn players prefer Flame Rift for good reasons. For you to state that the card is crap without justifying it is wrong.

[xsockmonkeyx]

This is the last list I was running before I gave up on burn.


17 Mountain

4 Mogg Fanatic

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Chain Lightning
4 Magma Jet
4 Fireblast
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain of Plasma
1 Rolling Earthquake
2 Fork
3 Browbeat
4 Flamebreak
1 Lava Dart

Go ahead and tear it apart SP

[SuckerPunch]

Xsock, the only thing I disagreed with you on was your statement that flame rift was crap and your the only justification or statement you gave to back that up was that it only deals 2 damage for each mana you spend on it. I'm sorry if I came off as a bit harsh. Your post (probably unintentionally) came off as a bit harsh to me and I responded in kind.

As for your list, it seems like you were running way too few lands. Even 18 lands with 4 magma jets is pushing it. Rolling Earthquake and Lava Dart also seem somewhat weak but it might make sense if your meta is almost entire aggro, your deck clearly seems to be more aimed at dealing with creatures and controlling the board rather than going for the throat which I personally disagree with (since that strategy makes it easy for your deck to stagnate while aggro control wins through sheer card advantage, control decks resolve bombs like worship and combo decks combo out, but if pure aggro is all you face, it could work). But strategically, if you are going for a slower more board control type build, browbeat makes sense.

[xsockmonkeyx]

That list was back when Goblins, Thresh and all kinds of agro were all I would see. The deck is underpowered and slower than most burn but it was good for that meta. In the contemporary environment it is too slow to compete with combo and the like. The Rolling Earthquake was flamebreak #5 and the Lava Dart was for Fanatic, Bob.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

I think Burn will always have the issue of which direction it wants to take. With the meta constantly changing, it seems rather difficult to find 1 optimal burn list. If you are expecting combo and you want to race it, then your list will be quicker out of the gate, but will lose gas faster and have a poor late game. This however, might put you in a tough situation against decks where you aren't able to kill them fast enough and you need a late game to stay alive. Wheras vise versa, if you want a consistent late game, then your matchups against combo will be much much worse. It is purely a meta game call, but at a large Legacy tournament where you know all sorts of decks will be crawling around, Burn in my opinion, is not the deck to play. It may be cheap and straight foward, but I really don't see this deck doing much. P.S.... When is the last time Burn has T8ed??

[SuckerPunch]

Just yesterday actually. Me and a couple of friends got together a mini tournament and burn top 4ed.

Seriously, I think the bigger reason for burn not top 8ing is because good players that build good decks opt to play more interesting decks. When was the last time you even saw a burn list at a tourney that looked halfway decent and/or was played well?

Yes it is a weaker deck than most of the decks on this forum and it is far too easy to hate out if any deck wanted to hate on burn, but I don't think it's unviable if you go for the sheer speed strategy but while running 4 flamebreak. Even thres, the deck you would think Burn would most easily stagnate against, can have a tough time with burn.

[Ziveeman]

I'm guessing this is a very radical suggestion, but why not Howling Mine?

I've been testing it out a bit and it keeps your hand full of burn spells. It allows you to adapt for the longer game which the current burn can't handle and it doesn't make you run out of gas.

The disadvantage is that you lose a turn 2 Incinerate, Lightning Bolt etc, and it helps your opponent. But burn should be fast enough to outrace your opponent anyways. It also creates more targets for Vindicate, Disenchant, etc, so it's really up to you. I've been experiencing good games with Howling Mine, and it's always easily sideboarded out in games 2 and 3.

[Iranon]

Howling Mine isn'tn good for much the same reasons Cursed Scroll isn't. It takes several rounds to overtake what a single burn spell would have done, it gives your opponent relevant cards, it doesn't help end the game quickly. Both average about 2 damage a turn, Mine doesn't provide colourless damage and I think giving your opponent a card a turn is the larger drawback than the mana commitment of Scroll.

I've tried a couple of things to adress the out-of-gas problem; so far the most successful one was making good use of the synergy between Flame Rift, Pulse of the Forge and Seal of Fire.
Each of the cards are questionable on their own, and management of your own life total can be a bit complicated at times, but running these solves the problem with very little investment.

[herbig]

I'm guessing this is a very radical suggestion, but why not Howling Mine?
It seems you've been keeping up with your daily wizards.com articles. While it may work in Standard, in the Legacy format Howling Mine is much too slow. It takes two turns for you to "gain" from the Mine, while also committing your resources turn two to casting it. Also, top decking Howling Mine while waiting for a Burn Spell to seal the deal is only going to help your opponent. And as Iranon said, it gives your opponent something to use their artifact hate on. Its not a radical suggestion by any means, just one that doesn't work in Legacy.

[Clark Kant]

Burn is just aching for that one last 1 cc 3 damage spell to consistently be able to cast 2 spells on turn 2 and turn 3.

Wizards seems to have answered the call.

Rift Bolt 2R
Sorcery
R, Suspend 1
3 damage to player or creature

It's a sorcery but so is Lava Spike.

Does it make the cut?

I'm certain of it.

It's not optimal only 1 in every 15 games that you play!

Yes Suspend 1 means that if you happen to top deck it precisely the turn where you want to kill them, it's bad. But that happens only 1 in every 15 games, low enough to not matter. And even in those 1 in 15 games, it's likely that having to wait one turn for it to resolve won't cost you the game. Add to that Magma Jet and the times when you can cast it for 3, and it becomes a bad card only once very 30 games or so.

This is basically a Lava Spike. Lots of people were saying Lava Spike isn't very good. Yet it became a staple in burn. Heck, unlike Lava Spike, this actually does hit creatures, you just have to wait one turn (or have 3 mana available).

As a burn player, I can tell you that Burn needs just one more 1cc 3 damage spell to have a curve that lets it cast 2 spells turn 2 and turn 3.

Casting multiple spells per turn is precisely how burn manages to overwhelm blue mages running countermagic.

Suspend 1 hardly seems relevent when all the damage is aimed at the dome anyways.

Even as a top deck, you can always cast it for 3 mana if you absolutely must win that turn.

What do you guys think?

Does it make the cut?

[bigbear102]

This card most definately makes the cut. It is a 3for1. Turn 1 Bolt, turn 2 Bolt/Bolt Turn 3 Bolt/Flame Rift/ Fireblast..... and now we have 16 Bolts to work with.... YAY!!!!!

I think this card is going to become a staple, as already stated, in Top Deck mode it won't be too awesome all the time, but most of the time it's going to act exactly as a Chain Lightning. I think it might be able to put Burn back into contention, at least making it tier 1.5.


4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Incinerate
4x Magma Jet
4x Flame Rift
4x Fireblast
3x Flame Break
2x Price of Progress
4x Mogg Fanatic

14x Mountain
1x Taiga
4x Wooded Foothills

SB:
2x Ancient Grudge (Shatter with a Flashback of G)
1x Flame Break
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
3x Red Elemental Blast
3x Pyroblast
2x Naturalize

[Clark Kant]

Looks solid.

Have you tried running Spark Elemental in place of Incinerate or possibly even Magma Jet or Flamebreak.

It'll let you get away with running 18 land so you can run the 4th Flamebreak.

I know it's not a great card if you meta has a lot of white weenie/angel stompy, but otherwise, it's pretty solid as most times... you cast it turn one or two, and your opponents won't block because they haven't started feeling the heat yet and won't want to lose their 1/1 just to prevent one damage.

[bigbear102]

Looks solid.

Have you tried running Spark Elemental in place of Incinerate or possibly even Magma Jet or Flamebreak.

it's pretty solid as most times... you cast it turn one or two, and your opponents won't block because they haven't started feeling the heat yet


No, no, and more no. Although I have considered running Sparky recently, you have reaffirmed me to be against it. First of all you would never replace Incinerate/Jet/Flamebreak, they are all staples/needed. Price of Progress would be the first to go, as it is most situational, then I guess Incinerate if we're going ballz out, but most likely Flame Rift would be cut before Incinerate.

Your post says exactly why Sparky shouldn't be played....solid at MOST times, not all the time.... turn one or two....what about turns 3-5? Also, it's a horrible topdeck. Burn should not be able to be blocked, fanatic gets in cuz he sacs, and deals with other pesky goblins.

On that note, I will be testing Sparky in the near future, just because the idea of 20 3-1's makes me all tingly inside. If we can make this deck consistently turn 3, then I guess he's worth it, if not, he sucks.

[jamest]

Magma Jet and Flamebreak are NOT staples. Both cards are good, but both are slower than Volcanic Hammer. Whether they make the cut after Rift Bolt enters the deck is debateable.

Spark Elemental is interesting. On one hand, it's another 3 for 1. On the other hand, it's easily stopped by many decks. I suspect it won't make the cut, but it should to be tested.

Another Time Spiral card which deserves serious consideration is Krosan Grip in the sideboard.

[Zilla]

Magma Jet and Flamebreak are NOT staples.Yes, they are. Magma Jet especially because it's the only draw fixer available to burn. Behind Lightning Bolt and Fireblast, it's the best spell ever printed for this archetype. As for Flamebreak, it's mandatory in any metagame with Goblins or other weenie aggro. In certain metas, it can be ommitted, but they are few and far between.

[lillelassie]

rift bolt will replace spark elemental im my version:


4x fanatics
4x lightning bolts
4x chain lightning
4x magma jets
4x incenerate
4x lava spike
4x rift bolt
4x pyrostatic pillar (MVP)
4x fireblast
3x rolling earthquake
2x price of progress

19x mountains

Board: (can´t remember it)

1x rolling earthquake
2x flamebreak
2x price of progress
3x shattering spree
4x sirocco
3x pithing needle


I replaced Flame rift with Pillar, since they almost do the same, but Pillar wins you more games against Thresh, stormcombo, Deathguy etc...

Rolling earthquake > Flamebreak, Earthquake is better than Flamebreak imo. the manacost is the same against Goblins, but only deals 2 damage to you, which might be crucial in that matchup.
Earthquake kills flying men: Hyppo, Faeríe Stompy, birds etc.
Earthquake can kill 3+ toughness creatures: werebear etc.
Earthquake act as a fireball!

I´m not quite sure on Pillar instead of Flame Rift. Plz comment my list if you think it´s bad :)

[bigbear102]

I think it's funny how people like to argue points that have been beaten into the ground 100 times over.

The staple list for any decent burn deck looks like this right now, with other slots debatable/metagamed:

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Lava Spike
4x Incinerate
4x Magma Jet
4x Fireblast
3-4x Flamebreak/Rolling Earthquake/Pyroclasm (in that order)

Again, the Flamebreak is somewhat metagamed, but it's metagamed against creatures, so if your whole meta is combo/control, then yes, it's cuttable, if there are any Goblins running around, it's a staple.

This has been debated and agreed upon by most everyone who has posted in this thread.

[Bane of the Living]

Does anyone still run Ball Lightning anymore? I got hit by one last week because I forgot all about him, now might be a good time to bust him out. Its not a bad sideboard option against alot of decks that love tapping out. It speeds the kill against decks like IGGy.

[rsaunder]

Does anyone still run Ball Lightning anymore? I got hit by one last week because I forgot all about him, now might be a good time to bust him out. Its not a bad sideboard option against alot of decks that love tapping out. It speeds the kill against decks like IGGy.It's still not great. Too many decks run removal, and I don't want 3 mana thrown away to make a card that would have usually been dead neuter my third turn. I wouldn't SB it either. Pillar is a better choice against most of the decks ball would hit.

[scrumdogg]

Has anyone tested Wheel of Fate yet? And by tested I mean actually put the card/proxy thereof in a deck and played with the goddamn thing not speculated, ruminated, or pontificated about MAYBE actually using the card (I have not yet, real life FTL). It seems like it could be game breaking.

[Bane of the Living]

It seems slow as balls in a deck that wants to kill on turns 3-4. You suspend it turn 2, and you might get your cards turn 6. Multiples are terrible, you give your opponent 4 turns to find a counterspell, and if you dont suspend it turn 2 its alot worse.

But I have not played it. I only speculate

[bigbear102]

Scrum: I am doing exactly what you did not want us to do, but I have a valid reason for not testing it, basically what Bane said. It draws you cards on turn 6. against Solidarity you are dead by then. IGGY is the same. Goblins should be over by turn 4-5 also. If you are relying on a card that comes online turn 4 earliest, then you are basically putting dead cards into your deck for a lot of matches.

Wheel is definately viable in more of a Stompyish burn deck, or maybe RDW, but straight burn like this is way too reliant on winning quickly to have a card like that.

[Moczoc]

Pyrostatic Pillar still sucks in topdecking mode. And why are people cutting Fork? Most times its just an Incinerate which isn't bad, but with Fireblast it really kicks ass!

Here is my current list:

4x Mogg Fanatic

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Incinerate
3x Magma Jet
4x Flame Rift
4x Fireblast
3x Flamebreak
3x Fork

17x Mountain
2x Barbarian Ring

[rsaunder]

Pyrostatic Pillar still sucks in topdecking mode. And why are people cutting Fork? Most times its just an Incinerate which isn't bad, but with Fireblast it really kicks ass!

Here is my current list:

4x Mogg Fanatic

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Incinerate
3x Magma Jet
4x Flame Rift
4x Fireblast
3x Flamebreak
3x Fork

17x Mountain
2x Barbarian RingMost of us don't run fork for the same reason you dismissed pillar: It's bad in topdeck mode. You should be running 4 magma jets. They're the second best card in the deck.

[The Rack]

Is Browbeat good enough to be in Burn anymore? I ask this because some swear by it and others say its crap. Whaddyathink?

[Eldariel]

It seems too expensive nowadays. The card is decent, but I think the deck has no room for additional 3-drops anymore, with the print of Rift Bolt.

On another note, Grapeshot promises to be decent combo-hate, coupled with Pillar, the deck might actually stop completely scooping it up to combo. Also, I strongly suggest Fork at most as a singleton or a 2-of, since you really don't want to be stuck with multiples, but one is generally good.

[Drkdstryer]

Unfortunately, Grapeshot is a Sorcery, so unless you want some Quicken shenanigans, it's out for combo. Never relevant against anyone but Solidarity, and if it IS relevant against then you've already lost.

I still swear by Browbeat. Yeah it's 3cc, but it's just so (potentially) powerful. +3 cards or 5 damage is better than any other card in the deck, so I would argue that the 3cc is acceptable.

[Eldariel]

The problem with Browbeat is, it can be pretty slow and I'd rather not have 3-CC cards if I can avoid that. About Grapeshot, wops! My bad, that makes it next to useless here.

[DarkAkuma]

Browbeat is nice, but to me, until theres a reason to get rid of Flamebreak maindeck, there isnt room enough for Browbeat.

And in reply to the topic of Magma Jet, it is in no way a staple in burn. It may be good to some, but its not as good as other burn spells like Lightning Bolt, and Fireblast which are the only staples. I personaly dont care for it at all, after trying to play it in burn for a year.

Also, i recently tried out Bauble Burn, and it seemed nice. Dont have to play less desireable burn spells. New spin on a old classc is alwas nice for a change, specialy when the deck doesent get worse. Split for top 2 at a recent local tourney with it. But i got to play against Farie Stompy twice, and between my burn and his ancient tombs, it be supprized it he won.

I think Rift Bolt will round out my list of Bauble Burn just enough. Perhaps enough to acctualy play burn more. Though i do worry about to many non-instant burn spells with Baubles.

[Drkdstryer]

Jet is so crucial. Especially in Baubleburn, where you can Bauble and then Jet away any lands you see. The fact that you can manipulate your library is just so powerful in this deck. I advocate Browbeat so much not because of the 5 to the dome - if it was 2R for 5 I wouldn't play it. It's that draw that's so obscene in Burn. The single biggest problem with Burn is running out of gas - and Jet puts those unnecessary lands to the bottom of the deck so you draw more red cards instead of more land cards. I really don't see how you can't like Jet.

In other news, what's your Baubleburn deck list with Rift Bolts? I mean, Baubles just help the problem of drawing dead, and I'm all for that in Burn.

[DarkAkuma]

My build is in no way optimized. Burn has always been a deck on the back burner for me. But modifying my current list to incude Rift Bolt here it is.

12x Mountain
4x Wasteland

4x Urza's Bauble
4x Mishra's Bauble

2x Sulfuric Vortex

4x Fire Blast
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Lava Spike
4x Shock
4x Incinerate
4x Flamebreak
4x Rift Bolt
1X Fork
1x *something else

Sideboard:
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Crash
3x Pyroblast
4x Guerrilla Tactics (lots of discard here, and i like the classics, lol)

The last spot could be another Mountain, Fork, Browbeat, or whatever. I played a 3of and a 2of in my last slots. Niether of them hardly seemed worth playing just 1 after bringing in Rift Bolt.

Also, i play Shock cause i dont have Chain Lightnings (being a backburner deck for me, im not trying very hard to get them). But i dont mind the 1 less damage to much, at the gain of instant speed. Deffinantly nicer with Baubles.

Oh, and i havent been paying attention to this burn thread much lately, so dont know if vortex got weeded out to board, or from the deck completly, but against life gain or not, it useualy spells "win" for me.

[Eldariel]

Jet is so crucial. Especially in Baubleburn, where you can Bauble and then Jet away any lands you see. The fact that you can manipulate your library is just so powerful in this deck. I advocate Browbeat so much not because of the 5 to the dome - if it was 2R for 5 I wouldn't play it. It's that draw that's so obscene in Burn. The single biggest problem with Burn is running out of gas - and Jet puts those unnecessary lands to the bottom of the deck so you draw more red cards instead of more land cards. I really don't see how you can't like Jet.

In other news, what's your Baubleburn deck list with Rift Bolts? I mean, Baubles just help the problem of drawing dead, and I'm all for that in Burn.

You have to understand that your opponent makes the choice on Browbeat. If he can in any way afford it, it will be 5 to the dome. The draw will only be accessible to you when you would win if you dealt damage instead! Browbeat is decent, but the deck really has no room for more 3-CC cards as it stands. Also, the best way to manipulate the library with Baubles is through Fetchlands and Mishra's Bauble, not Magma Jet and Mishra's Bauble; Magma Jet needs no Bauble to work as manipulation, but fetchland turns the Bauble-activation into pseudo-Opt (as long as you have instants, you can wait until your opponent's upkeep to draw the card and only then break the fetch if you want the topcard).

[Drkdstryer]

You have to understand that your opponent makes the choice on Browbeat. If he can in any way afford it, it will be 5 to the dome. The draw will only be accessible to you when you would win if you dealt damage instead! Browbeat is decent, but the deck really has no room for more 3-CC cards as it stands. Also, the best way to manipulate the library with Baubles is through Fetchlands and Mishra's Bauble, not Magma Jet and Mishra's Bauble; Magma Jet needs no Bauble to work as manipulation, but fetchland turns the Bauble-activation into pseudo-Opt (as long as you have instants, you can wait until your opponent's upkeep to draw the card and only then break the fetch if you want the topcard).

Re: Browbeat: Obviously the opponent will choose 5 damage if they can. The thing is, that's GOOD. 5 damage for one card is an AMAZING deal. Think about it: the problem with Burn is simply running out of cards. Spending one card to get 25% to your goal is an amazing deal. Admittedly, it is a little weak when they are at 5 life, because then you "only" get to draw three cards. If they are at 5 or less, drawing three cards will almost definitely win you the game as long as your deck is built well. Also, you should know what the optimal choice for your opponent is and be able to cast Browbeat or another card in every situation. Giving opponents choices is generally bad, yes, but with Browbeat in this deck there IS no good choice for your opoonent. Both modes of Browbeat contribute so much to your game strategy, more than any other card by itself. Fireblast can't do 5 damage, and Magma Jet can't actually draw cards. You are trading a LITTLE bit of consistency for a huge gain. I think that the little bit of control you lose when you play Browbeat is well worth the gains with either choice on the card.

Also, using Baubles isn't using them as manipulation, it's just thinning the deck. It wasn't worth running just Urza's Bauble, but with 8 Bauble effects to make your deck closer to 52 cards. But you're totally right, using a Jet --> Bauble synergy was a bad argument to use for Jet. I haven't actually tested Baubleburn yet, so I'm just theorizing at this point.

[Eldariel]

Re: Browbeat: Obviously the opponent will choose 5 damage if they can. The thing is, that's GOOD. 5 damage for one card is an AMAZING deal. Think about it: the problem with Burn is simply running out of cards. Spending one card to get 25% to your goal is an amazing deal. Admittedly, it is a little weak when they are at 5 life, because then you "only" get to draw three cards. If they are at 5 or less, drawing three cards will almost definitely win you the game as long as your deck is built well. Also, you should know what the optimal choice for your opponent is and be able to cast Browbeat or another card in every situation. Giving opponents choices is generally bad, yes, but with Browbeat in this deck there IS no good choice for your opoonent. Both modes of Browbeat contribute so much to your game strategy, more than any other card by itself. Fireblast can't do 5 damage, and Magma Jet can't actually draw cards. You are trading a LITTLE bit of consistency for a huge gain. I think that the little bit of control you lose when you play Browbeat is well worth the gains with either choice on the card.

You trade speed for consistency. Also, Browbeat is horrible if your opponent lets you draw and you find more 3-casters, or say, there's a Chalice at 1 down. But the big problem with the card is, you have a real hard time burning your opponent into oblivion with a curve including Browbeat. It is good if you include no other 3-casters, but Flamebreak usually superceeds it along with Sulfuric Vortex and the like. It just slows you down like no tomorrow. If there were no good 2- or 1-drops, it could be good, but there's really no reason to play it over the cheaper cards as it stands.

On another note, Fork seems like a good card against Iggy-Pop, since you can copy the lethal Tendrils and kill the opponent. If they can't Mindtwist with their Leyline you, you can just Fork them into oblivion. I think that's a good-enough reason to play few copies of it.

[Volt]

On another note, Fork seems like a good card against Iggy-Pop, since you can copy the lethal Tendrils and kill the opponent. If they can't Mindtwist with their Leyline you, you can just Fork them into oblivion. I think that's a good-enough reason to play few copies of it.

Nice thought, but doesn't work. Storm only triggers when the card is played. Fork puts a copy of the spell on the stack, which doesn't count as being "played." Therefore, Storm doesn't trigger.

[Eldariel]

Nice thought, but doesn't work. Storm only triggers when the card is played. Fork puts a copy of the spell on the stack, which doesn't count as being "played." Therefore, Storm doesn't trigger.

Right, the spell is worded like that. Stupid Magic. Well, you can then copy a single copy of the Tendrils and have it resolve before the tends -.-

[Tacosnape]

Here's what I've been running, to amazing results:

Main:

16-17 Mountain

4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Spark Elemental
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
4 Flamebreak
3-4 Ball Lightning

Side:
4 Pithing Needle
4 Price of Progress
4 Flame Rift
3 Shattering Spree

Now before we get to the barrage of "Spark Elemental/Ball Lightning are awful," give me a fair chance to defend the choices.

Spark Elemental, along with the new wonder of Rift Bolt, gives burn the chance to have 20 R-for-3 spells in the deck. Spark Elemental certainly is suboptimal to the others, but it's an ideal turn one play, and the fact that it's a single mana makes a huge difference, as i'll illustrate shortly.

Ball Lightning is much tougher to get through than Spark, but he's still up to six damage on a single card. If he takes a 3/3 or 4/4 guy down with him, that's all the more time you've bought with him. His only real failings are when he walks into things like Mogg Fanatic or Diabolic Edict. STP isn't always as bad, as the 6 life sometimes buys you extra time, and Silver Knight alone isn't terrible, as any deck running it can't afford to hold the Silver Knight back while you throw other burn at their face.

In sideboard, Needle and Price are fairly simple choices. Needle stops Jitte, as well as other random problems like Rune of Protection Red, Mogg Fanatic, or whatnot. Price wrecks Nonbasic-loaded decks. The other choices, especially the exclusion of Crypt, need a little explaining. Flame Rift comes in against anything non-aggro. It'll replace your Incinerates against Combo, it'll replace your Ball Lightning or Flamebreak against Control. Shattering Spree is meant to destroy Chalice of the Void, which is a nightmare for this deck to cope with. It can be Crash, Tormod's Crypt, or anything else if you don't have to deal with a lot of Chalices.

What this deck can do is perform third turn 19 damage sets with surprising frequency (for burn, anyway), and more often than not in a format awash with fetchlands, 19 damage by turn 3 is a kill.

Example 1 (Opening Hand: Mountain, Mountain, Mishra's Bauble, Rift Bolt, Incinerate, 2 Chain Lightning)

Turn one: Mountain, Mishra's Bauble, Suspended Rift Bolt. Drew a Fireblast on the slowtrip.
Turn two: Rift Bolted for 3 during upkeep (3 damage). Drew a Lava Spike. Played Mountain and passed. Played Incinerate at opponent's EOT for 3. (6 damage).
Turn three: Drew a Mountain. Played the Mountain. Played Chain Lightning for 3. (9 Damage), Chain Lightning for 3 (12 damage), Lava Spike for 3 (15 damage), Fireblast for 4 (19 damage.) Note that this would have been 20 with Flame Rifts sided in for Incinerates.

Example 2 (Opening Hand: 2 Mountain, 2 Urza's Bauble, Ball Lightning, Fireblast, Spark Elemental)

Turn one: Mountain, both Urza's Baubles, Spark Elemental for 3 (3 damage.) Drew Flamebreak/Lava Spike on the slowtrips.
Turn two: Drew a Mishra's Bauble and used it. Played Mountain. Played Lava Spike for 3 (6 damage.) Drew Lightning Bolt on the slowtrip, played it EOT for 3 (9 damage.)
Turn three: Drew a Mountain. Played it, played Ball Lightning for 6 (15 damage) followed by Fireblast for 4 (19 damage.) If facing Goblins here, Flamebreak could have swept the board, followed by Ball/Blast next turn.

Basically, I like the power Sparky and Ball add to the deck. I would make a much stronger case for Spark Elemental, as the 20 1 for 3 makes the deck so much more consistent, but I urge you to reconsider Ball Lightning sometime too, especially now that the curve of the remainder of the deck has dropped so drastically.

[BiscuitVader]

*Note: I have yet to test this idea.

Now that Time Sprial has given us another 1cc 3 damage burn spell, we can run 16 in Burn.

What if we run 3-4 Fork in the maindeck? You can turn 3 mana into 6 points of burn. With Rift Bolt, you can suspend it on turn two, and use left over mana to cast another burn spell. Then, upkeep, Fork it.

I'm going to do some testing with this idea, does anyone think it could work?

[DarkAkuma]

While I planed on playing my UB Control deck (Crystal Lake, in Development forum), I ended up desiding last minute to play burn again for a second week in a row at my local saturday tourney. And I went with a last minute +3 Magma Jet -3 Chain of Plasma. I still dont think Magma jet is a burn staple, but after a whole lot of casual play last week with it, I realy stoped likeing Chain of Plasma, and the deck manipulation started seeming appealing.

I got top 2 again, and though the other guy in top 2 forfited his prize to me, win or lose, we still played it out. Sadly he gave me my only loss the whole tourney. I beat him earlier in the tourney, effortlessly, but this time he busted out a first turn chalice for 1 when i was on the draw, then a second turn chalice for 2. Haveing no maindeck artifact removal, i opted to scoop and more to round 2. Of corse sideboarding in artifact removal in the form of Crash and Rack and Ruin, i won round 2. But round 3 sucked. I had only 1 land the most game, and had to sac it to crash early. And by the time I could recover, he had a Chalice for 1 and 3 out, with a couple Mages nameing Fireblast and Magma Jet. Then beat me down with the mages.

Anyway, now that i got that boring crap out of the way. I like Rift Bolt even more thanks to its ability to be a 1cc burn spell not effected by a chalice for 1.

I'm also going to try Mogg Salvage instead of Crash next time i play burn, since most artifacts i care about are in decks with islands.

Board will look something like:

2 Rack and Ruin
2 Mogg Salvage
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyro Blast
2 Steam Blast (crapy 5th and 6th Flamebreak. Dont use Pyroclasym since it doesent hit opponant too)
2 Blood Moon
3 Anarchy

Some of that is for meta decks, some of it is experimental.

[Iranon]

@ Dark Akuma: I think those are suboptimal too, but wouldn't Rolling Earthquake be superior to Steam Blast in the board?



@ Tacosnape: I wholeheartedly agree with running efficient cards in Bauble Burn, as opposed to those with 'soft' benefits.

However, I'm still not convinced I like the Balls; I'd much rather run Shrapnel Blast to give you even more turn 3 kills, fetch lands or not. This warrants 2-3 Great Furnaces in addition to the baubles, but I don't consider this a problem: With 14 mountains and 3 Furnaces, the chance of having 2 Mountains in 3 lands is still above 92%.




Now for something completely different, at the other extreme...

18 Mountain

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Seal of Fire
2 Lava Spike

4 Magma Jet
4 Flame Rift

4 Rift Bolt
4 Flamebreak
4 Pulse of the Forge

4 Fireblast





Pulse of the Forge is the MVP of the deck. It singlehandedly means you won't run out of steam, it augments your strategic advantage against aggro, it makes an opponent's life gain a lot more tolerable, it means aggro/control needs to counter the right spell at the right time rather than whatever/whenever to smash your clock, it punishes Tendrils players for trying to go off in bouts, it actually allows you to play the control part and live to tell the tale... the applications are almost limitless.

If you haven't played it in Burn before, remember that Flamebreaking their team only after they dealt damage, targeting critters liberally with your other burn and Mana Burning yourself are occasionally correct plays.


It's amazing in an amazing number of match-ups, for entirely different reasons, but imo we still need additional reasons to run it over browbeat (every point of damage matters, after all). Enter the sidekicks:

Flame Rift and Seal of Fire; both have excellent synergy with Pulse of the Forge and push it to be a real star. Flame Rift is perfectly playable anyway and almost a no-brainer in this deck.

Seal, despite the supremely savage synergy with Pulse, is questionable as a 4-of and might be shaved in favour of more lava spikes and, possibly, a mountain (the usual problem: 18 lands isn't enough, 19 lands is too much).

Apart from this slight point of uncertainty, I believe the list is solid; it is a lot more robust than most of the established versions without significantly compromising its capability of a turn 3 or 4 kill.

[tivadar]

So I'm wondering why this deck doesn't run barbarian ring? It seems like a potential problem for it is against decks like angel stompy running pro-red and jitte. Barbarian ring gets around this problem nicely. Granted, it gives you a wasteland target, but still, it's an extra 2 damage at the cost of a land in most cases.

[Eldariel]

I'd personally run at least 2 Barbarian Rings in Bauble-builds (well, ok, I play 3 but I play 17 lands too) since you always have Threshold, can easily dig for extras and they allow you to abuse opponents like Threshold which stabilize at low life and start countering your crap. At the very least, they earn a Needle, but often they allow you to just smack them senseless.

Tacoscape: With Baubles, why not run Fetches? Fetchland+Mishra's Bauble(+Instant)=Opt for 0 mana. Also, don't you think you might like a Fork or two? It also gives you the magical 20 off quad Bolt+2-mana spell+Blast. Finally, I completely agree with your assesment of Sparky and Ball, I've been coming to similar conclusions, however I'm not sure you want to run that many since it makes creature removal really potent against you. I personally run 2 Sparkys and a singleton Ball, but Sparkies might want to go up. I wouldn't play any more than 2 Balls though, since it can really hurt to have opponent prevent 6 damage with removal-spells. But I definately agree with the manburn, they also allow you to get past random Ivory Masks and company (I personally run Culling Scales as my SB anti-hate. While it costs 3, it also answers crap like Warmth, Chill, pro-red + Worship, etc. and since I play mostly online due to the lack of local tournaments, random burn-hate is all over the place). I've also found the Baubles surprisingly useful for their effects, knowing what opponent is playing from Urza's really helps to plan your game and being able to use Mishra's as Opts is awesome, so they have useful effects in addition to upping your consistency by tons (since the deck really, REALLY wants Fireblasts).

If I was you, I'd free up SB-slot (Flame Rift most importantly, it looks really suboptimal to waste SB slots on that one point; the only place where you really want to bring them in is against Solidarity and if you want SB against that, play Sirocco, REB or something) for more combo-hate to match Iggy-Pop and other Tendrils-combo on even footing (Chalice at 0/Crypt/similar and I'd personally play Pyrostatic Pillar. Too bad, neither Grapeshot nor Fork work -.-). I'd also consider a number of Price of Progresses in MD as they're practically never dead, since that frees up SB space for more specific and damaging hatecards for the harder MUs.

[DarkAkuma]

@Iranon: I play what i own. I dont own Rolling Earthquake, but I do own Steam Blast. If i did, I would probly play it main over Flambreak, but since I dont put much effort into getting cards for burn (its only winning for me now cause no-one is exspecting it), ill probly be sticking with flamebreak+steam blast again agro.

@tivadar: Personaly, i'd play Pyrite Spellbomb over Barbarian Ring if pro red dudes started showing up in my meta. I feel that 4 Wastelands is enough non-mountains, and sometimes even then i get annoyed. I want to make sure i have 2 mountains asap, and when i do, im often looking to get 4 mountains asap. Fireblast is just to good. Also im not a big fan of aything in burn that does damage to you, unless at the same time its doing the same ammount to an opponant. Also, Ring sucks againt Wretch, Tormod's, and Leyline. not that anyone will be sideing the first 2 in against you useualy, but thy might if they arent realy prepared for burn and have nothing to board against it. Leyline though is played main.

@Eldariel: Your question wasent for me, but still. I dont like fetches in burn. I tried them, but they just arent good enough. I dont care for anything in burn that damages you witout doing the same to an opponant. And one of the tricks to getting the win with burn sometimes is seeing how much damage you can soak up in order to aim at the dome and get the win. Also, as annoying as top decking lands is when you need burn, deck thining isnt to great with burn as sometimes you fail with a fireblast, or get your land wiped out and need to top deck some more. I guess Magma Jet is enough to make sure you dont topdeck land instead of burn.

[BiscuitVader]

***Note: This list has not been tested. I plan on working on it later tonight though, so any thoughts you may have would be appriciated.

FOUR FORK BURN:
// Lands
11 [UNH] Mountain
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire

// Spells
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
4 [OV] Incinerate
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
4 [FD] Magma Jet
4 [VI] Fireblast
4 [CHK] Lava Spike
4 [NE] Flame Rift
3 [EX] Price of Progress
4 [A] Fork
4 [TSP] Rift Bolt
2 [DS] Pulse of the Forge

With 16 1 mana for 3 damage spells, making it three mana for 6 damage seems like a good plan.

Fork can also copy opponents spells, making it great.
All in all, I think a Four Fork Burn deck could work.

I'll let you know later.

[DaFuzZ]

You might want to think about finding a spot for Flamebreak in there, or something to clear the board.

[Tacosnape]

Tacoscape: With Baubles, why not run Fetches? Fetchland+Mishra's Bauble(+Instant)=Opt for 0 mana. Also, don't you think you might like a Fork or two? It also gives you the magical 20 off quad Bolt+2-mana spell+Blast. Finally, I completely agree with your assesment of Sparky and Ball, I've been coming to similar conclusions, however I'm not sure you want to run that many since it makes creature removal really potent against you. I personally run 2 Sparkys and a singleton Ball, but Sparkies might want to go up. I wouldn't play any more than 2 Balls though, since it can really hurt to have opponent prevent 6 damage with removal-spells. But I definately agree with the manburn, they also allow you to get past random Ivory Masks and company (I personally run Culling Scales as my SB anti-hate. While it costs 3, it also answers crap like Warmth, Chill, pro-red + Worship, etc. and since I play mostly online due to the lack of local tournaments, random burn-hate is all over the place). I've also found the Baubles surprisingly useful for their effects, knowing what opponent is playing from Urza's really helps to plan your game and being able to use Mishra's as Opts is awesome, so they have useful effects in addition to upping your consistency by tons (since the deck really, REALLY wants Fireblasts).

If I was you, I'd free up SB-slot (Flame Rift most importantly, it looks really suboptimal to waste SB slots on that one point; the only place where you really want to bring them in is against Solidarity and if you want SB against that, play Sirocco, REB or something) for more combo-hate to match Iggy-Pop and other Tendrils-combo on even footing (Chalice at 0/Crypt/similar and I'd personally play Pyrostatic Pillar. Too bad, neither Grapeshot nor Fork work -.-). I'd also consider a number of Price of Progresses in MD as they're practically never dead, since that frees up SB space for more specific and damaging hatecards for the harder MUs.

Dear God, your brain works too much. I need to send you all my decklists for you to point things out to me.

1. I don't like Fork. I never have. I've lost far too many games by peeling Fork off the top of my library. I've also lost a match in a tournament holding two Forks that I couldn't use because my opponent boarded in Arcane Laboratory.

2. I always forget Mishra's Bauble can target yourself. DurDurTaco. This makes fetchlands an interesting idea, but probably one I would stay away from nonetheless simply because of the life total drop. I want to be able to consistently outrace goblins on games I don't draw a Flamebreak.

3. I don't find the creature removal against Spark Elemental and Ball Lightning to ever be a problem except in the case of facing Goblins. The reason for this is that in order to beat burn, people have to tap their lands and play threats or do what their deck has to do. They can rarely afford to leave mana open. Sure, on occasion I'll lose an occasional Ball Lightning to STP, but more often than not he gets through. Against goblins, however, Pyrokinesis and Mogg Fanatic wreck him, and he has no business being around for this matchup.

4. I don't always find Sirocco necessary to beat Solidarity. Ball Lightning does a pretty solid job of it, and it's one of the reasons I love Bally so much. Granted, on occasion, Remand will wreck my face, but I tend to come out slightly ahead against Solidarity with this version.

5. Flame Rift should probably be something else. (Crypt and Chalice sound like fair ideas, since Iggy is such a ridiculously hard matchup.) What I also need is something to board in against Goblins in the place of Ball Lightning, such as, I dunno, Steam Blast? Surely there has to be something better. (Let me try to think of the best thing ever. Beef...Stew. Yep. Imagination's broken.)Any suggestions?

6. Price of Progress main is bad against Goblins and dead against Solidarity. That's reason enough for it to sit in the sideboard for me.

[Eldariel]

Dear God, your brain works too much. I need to send you all my decklists for you to point things out to me.

1. I don't like Fork. I never have. I've lost far too many games by peeling Fork off the top of my library. I've also lost a match in a tournament holding two Forks that I couldn't use because my opponent boarded in Arcane Laboratory.

Heh, I guess there's one for everyone; I've grown used to keeping a single burn-spell in hand incase I topdeck a Fork, but each to thine own, of course.


2. I always forget Mishra's Bauble can target yourself. DurDurTaco. This makes fetchlands an interesting idea, but probably one I would stay away from nonetheless simply because of the life total drop. I want to be able to consistently outrace goblins on games I don't draw a Flamebreak.

Mmm, but when Goblins can swing for enough, they can usually swing for plenty enough (it basically comes down to the number of Piledrivers they have, but if they swing for the kill, I usually see them swinging for 21 or so), I'm not sure how much it affects there. Still, I'll again concede that I'm crazy, fearless and suicidal, which might affect my card evaluations a bit. I'd personally be willing to pay some life for some library manipulation though.


3. I don't find the creature removal against Spark Elemental and Ball Lightning to ever be a problem except in the case of facing Goblins. The reason for this is that in order to beat burn, people have to tap their lands and play threats or do what their deck has to do. They can rarely afford to leave mana open. Sure, on occasion I'll lose an occasional Ball Lightning to STP, but more often than not he gets through. Against goblins, however, Pyrokinesis and Mogg Fanatic wreck him, and he has no business being around for this matchup.

Mmm yea, I was thinking about Threshold, instead of having to counter your final burn-spells, they can StP instead. Still, the creature-based burn is definately potent consistency-wise. I don't personally like playing too many, but I definately wouldn't axe it entirely.


4. I don't always find Sirocco necessary to beat Solidarity. Ball Lightning does a pretty solid job of it, and it's one of the reasons I love Bally so much. Granted, on occasion, Remand will wreck my face, but I tend to come out slightly ahead against Solidarity with this version.

Well yea, I personally like to just sideboard like hell against combo (like, Siroccos, Pyrostatic Pillars and perhaps some Blasts against Solidarity), since I really want to win against them (I keep having these delusions of combo being nuts). Meh. I guess Solidarity isn't that bad as your goldfish is a bit faster, and since you're a pseudo-combo deck only, counters don't wreck you nearly as bad as they do a real combo-deck. Also, you don't add that much to the storm-count.


5. Flame Rift should probably be something else. (Crypt and Chalice sound like fair ideas, since Iggy is such a ridiculously hard matchup.) What I also need is something to board in against Goblins in the place of Ball Lightning, such as, I dunno, Steam Blast? Surely there has to be something better. (Let me try to think of the best thing ever. Beef...Stew. Yep. Imagination's broken.)Any suggestions?

Rolling Earthquake? At the very least a Steamblast, can wreck any aggro-decks, can be cast for a pseudo-Tremor, can go to the dome like a Blaze in weird games. Definately the best burn has to offer after Flamebreak. I definately agree that the deck needs to board against Igg though, since the deck is quite unfair.


6. Price of Progress main is bad against Goblins and dead against Solidarity. That's reason enough for it to sit in the sideboard for me.

I dunno, between Ports and Wastes, and possibly Taigas/Plateaus, I usually find it dealing about 2-4 to Gobs, which is ok for a 2-mana instant. I'll concede Solidarity though, which is why I wouldn't MD more than few. I guess I just like MDing anything that's even slightly MDable since that allows me to fit more hate to the SB.

[bigbear102]

Why aren't we just playing Flame Rift MD??? It is an insane card, 4 damage for 2 mana is almost as good as it gets.

As for everyone who says that Magma Jet is not a staple for burn, good luck. I'm done trying to convince you that you are wrong (which you are).

I believe that Price of Progress is MDable as a 3-4 of. In most of your matches it is 4 damage, and in some it is a lot more. You should have enough hate in your board for solidarity to make that a winnable match. The PoP is priceless against Thresh/Gro though. Game 1 PoP wins me most of my games against them.

[DeppChef]

Same to me. FlameRift ist a MUST. The philosophy of burn is to kill as fast as possible without taking care of what your opp is doing. 4 damage with cc 2 isn´t worth any discussion to me. You simply don´t have to be afraid of hurting yourself.

Secondly don´t play 4 Flamebreaks MD. It does nothing against Solidarity, IggyPop, AngelStompy, FairyStompy and almost nothing against NQG. Certainly it helps against random weenies and Gobbos, but you normally can win without that card. With cc 3 you want to do anything else, e.g...

...Browbeat! Try it and enjoy it. I love that spell. No matter what, it helps you in every case. 3rd turn Browbeat often ends in an 4th turn kill. Here´s what I´m talking about:

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt (replacing Incinerate)
4 Spark Elemental
4 Magma Jet
4 Flame Rift
4 Browbeat
4 Fireblast
3 Price of Progress
1 Fork
20 Mountain

It´s an evolution of what earned me a 14th place at Grand Prix Lille last year. It´s very consistent meaning Goldfishing ends up sometimes in turn 3, most of the time in turn 4 and at the very last in turn 5.

Sideboarding is in progress but should look like that:

4 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Sirocco
3 Flamebreak
1 Price of Progress

[rsaunder]

Secondly don´t play 4 Flamebreaks MD. It does nothing against Solidarity, IggyPop, AngelStompy, FairyStompy and almost nothing against NQG. Certainly it helps against random weenies and Gobbos, but you normally can win without that card. With cc 3 you want to do anything else, e.g...

4 Rift Bolt (replacing Incinerate)
You don't normally race goblins. It's a coin flip. Both of your fundimental turns are four, but with the posibility of a turn 3 kill. 3 or 4 flamebreaks make this an unbelieveably positive matchup.

Flamebreak is unique among sweepers in that it does something in all matchups. Namely, direct damage.

Why in the world did rift bolt replace incinerate? You play POP and fork, both situational cards that can, and in fork's case frequently will be 95% of the time, equal to incinerate.

[DaFuzZ]

Are you forfeiting game 1 to goblins? I see you have no Mogg's or Flamebreaks in the deck...

[Iranon]

It should still be pretty even on the play, slightly against on the draw (and that mostly because of Browbeat itself - draw and die if your opponent has the same clock as you do. Unless you draw a Fireblast, of course). I still wouldn't throw away a card that spells 'Ooops, I win' against a big portion of the field and isn't THAT bad against its bad match-ups (for example, Price can be a total dud. Flamebreak is merely overcosted).

[DeppChef]

On 10/7 the Duel for Duals took place with 72 participants. Two burner joined and ended only 67th and 69th!

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-10-08&end_date=2006-10-08&city=Roanoke&state=VA&country=US

Is Burn still viable???

[Eldariel]

Those lists are janky, I don't think this is telling anything to us. Baubles increase consistency so I'd say they should be played. That or Pyrostatic Pillar for some heavy power. Those builds played neither and the other one had friggin' BASIC PLAINS (and yea, one MDd Guerrilla Tactics. Hooray for 2-mana Shocks! I'm sure someone will try Sudden Shock in burn only to notice that it actually does suck.)! Also, they SBd random jank like Guerrilla Tactics (yea, BW Confidant is so bad an MU -.-), Browbeat (WTF?), etc. I'll just go ahead and assume that their playing reflected the lists too, so we can't really draw conclusions about the viability of the deck based on those results. Testing is far more reliable a source, especially when properly done with skilled co-testers and the relevant lists.

[kicks_422]

It has always been "viable" if you define "viable" as something which could win a few games here and there... It will probably never win a major tournament, though.

[Eldariel]

It has always been "viable" if you define "viable" as something which could win a few games here and there... It will probably never win a major tournament, though.

I dunno, 14th place at Lille suggests that it can win. All it needs is some good pairings (8 rounds of Goblins, for example), good piloting and most importantly, a solid, metagamed build (remember that Rift Bolt hasn't been legal in any tournaments yet. The 4 extra Bolts add a large amount of consistency to the fast goldfish, while also increasing the Chalice-resilience and such. Also, Bauble Burn and Pillar Burn both appear to have seen precious little play in tournament environment, something which is foolish considering how they're almost strictly superior to standard Burn). None of the lists I've seen recently at bigger tournament have been very solid and it's not out there to assume that the pilots weren't either

[Kronicler]

So Eldariel, if you were about to run Bauble Burn at a tourney rather than FS (lol), what would be the list you would use?

[DaFuzZ]

That's a good question, I'd also like to see a Pillar Burn list if you've got one.

[Eldariel]

I haven't had enough time to hammer out perfect decklists for either, especially not with Rift Bolt since I've merely played dozen games on MWS with it, which tells a lot of nothing. Here's some Bauble Burn-version I tested:
Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills (with Mishra's Bauble, these become Opts, hence the inclusion)
2 Barbarian Ring (easy to get Threshold, uncounterable damage is some good)
7 Mountain

Burn
2 Spark Elemental (I wouldn't play full 4, but I want turn 1 stuff, and opponent might miss-SB due to seeing it)
1 Ball Lightning (had an extra slot)
4 Magma Jet (I'm not sure it's fast enough with the addition of Rift Bolt, it plays more towards turn 4-kill than turn 3-kill)
2 Price of Progress
4 Fireblast
4 Flamebreak
2 Fork (for Fireblast or copying 1-CC cards)
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt

Free-trips
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble


Sideboard
2 Price of Progress
1 Sirocco
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Culling Scales


Here's a random RW Pillar-build (RW is nice since Helix can help with the huge damage Pillar deals to everyone, but meh, it opens you to Wasteland):
Lands
5 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Plateau
2 Barbarian Ring

Burn (this list is a bit of a metagamed hate-build with the Pillars, 5 sweepers and anti-lifegain main)
2 Spark Elemental
1 Rolling Earthquake
3 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Price of Progress
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
2 Fork
4 Fireblast
4 Flamebreak
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Lightning Helix
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning


Sideboard
2 Price of Progress
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Disenchant
4 Sirocco
4 Chalice of the Void (IGG, additional hate to bring in after Pillar)

[BullBar]

You are heading in directions most obvious. This is a good thing, and your lists are OK for an off-the-cuff response.
I can say that Rift Bolt is a decent spell, rarely dead, and dropping our average casting costs can only be a tempo enhancer.
I've also noticed that Rw versions seem stronger in the field, and that fear of Wasteland is illogical. Virtually every time an opponent has cracked a wasteland at me, it feels like I've just LDed him. Our ridiculously low mana costs make it largely irrelevent, and the opponent more often suffers tempoloss from the 'missed' land drop. With Disenchant in the board taking Anarchys slots, the Av. CC just dropped again!
Testing Baubleburn soon, and Shrapnel Blast as a 2 of.

P.S. Is there that much Solidarity in your metas? Is Sirrocco nessasary? I'm having a good time against it with just REB/Pyroblast and Pillars.

[Eldariel]

Testing Baubleburn soon, and Shrapnel Blast as a 2 of.

Be careful. Shrapnel Blast might sound alluring, but in the end it's just an underpowered, conditional Lightning Bolt. Since you sacrifice a Bauble, it costs you 2 cards and 2 mana for 5 damage. That's the same as casting 2 Lightning Bolts, except one less damage. And that requires the circumstances to favour you by putting a Bauble or Great Furnace in place. And playing Great Furnaces forces you to take away Barbarian Rings, a card which is awesome in Bauble Burn since you basically always have Threshold and it evens out your draws, as well as dealing the last few points.


P.S. Is there that much Solidarity in your metas? Is Sirrocco nessasary? I'm having a good time against it with just REB/Pyroblast and Pillars.

Like the old saying goes, better safe than sorry. I haven't actually tested the MU too much, but Sirocco probably isn't necessary. The MU I most want hate in is Tendrils; They're many turns faster than us. Tormod's Crypts, Pyrostatic Pillars, perhaps even Blasts (since Intuition is a critical spell, as well as their bounce) all need to come in in the MU, and I'm not sure that's even enough; they still have the chance of just Mindtwisting you FTW (since Burn isn't dealing 20 without a hand). The reason for the high amount of Solidarity-hate though is that they run counters, so in addition to you needing to draw the hate, you really want to resolve it. It helps to have more hate, since it's easier to resolve 'em through a wall when you can just let the first one go.


Also, the difference between RW and mono-R is mostly in the Goblins-MU; mono-R can guarantee that turn 3 Flamebreak almost invariably (if they start porting your lands, I guess you might have to burn the Lackey), but Rw, if your draw involves one or more actual Plateaus, might have to play a Wastelandable land on turn 2 possibly crippling you away from Break FTL. Also, Culling Scales does the same as Disenchant most of the time, so mono-R isn't far behind from Rw in that regard. Still, Rw has its merits and as long as your draw involves Mountains and Fetches, you're fine.

[Moczoc]

I'm currently testing Shrapnel Blast as a 4 of with 3 Chromatic Stars to support it (and as a cantrip if i dont draw a blast).

Concerning Browbeat i must say that I'm impressed, playing a Browbeat is often ''your winning the game next round''

[outsideangel]

With Keldon Brigand coming out soon, I figure it's time enough to start up discussion of everyone's favorite deck, Burn! We already had a bit of talk about Brigand's possible inclusion in Burn over in the Sligh thread, but this is obviously the place to debate the merits of the card further.

Keldon Brigand
1R
3/3
Vanishing 2
When ~ comes into play or leaves play, it deals 1 damage to target player.

So you can look at him as a creature that will only ever get to attack once, and he doesn't look particularly stellar, but I prefer to look at him as more of a burn spell than a creature.

The whole idea behind creatures is the trade-off between getting multiple attacks in and the vulnerability to destruction and delay before doing any damage. Creatures can put constant pressure on the opponent, but they might also die before doing anything at all, especially in a format with removal so cheap and plentiful.

Brigand only gets to swing once, so he's not going to be constantly pressuring them. However, he is always guaranteed to do 2 damage. (barring rare circumstances like Humility) Traditionally, Burn likes to play as close to 0 creatures as it can, the only exceptions being Mogg Fanatic, because it's guaranteed damage, and Spark Elemental, because it's really just a situational bolt. This allows it to generate virtual card advantage by making all of the opponent's creature kill dead.

So where does Brigand fall into this? Well, he looks to me like sort of a cross between Fanatic and Sparky, and that's pretty good. He's always going to do 2 damage for 2 mana, which, while no 3-to-1 Lightning Bolt, is only slightly weaker than the 3-for-2 Incinerate. However, Brigand does a bunch of other stuff too.

-He can swing and deal 3 more damage, making him a 5-for-2, which is very strong.
-The turn he comes into play, he can block. While it doesn't seem signifigant, there are games vs. say, Goblins, where if Burn just had one more turn... Well, Brigand can buy you that extra turn, as few players really want to attack into a 3/3 now and lose their guy, rather than wait a turn.
-If he is blocked, you can follow him up with a Flamebreak to take out anything up to X/6.
-If they play removal on him, that's fine! Seriously, you just did 2 damage for 2 mana, a little subpar on the cost, but ended up gaining tempo. The three most common spells he's going to meet are Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, and Goblin Incinerator. In the case of the first two, your Keldon Brigand has actually now become a variant on Lightning Helix, dealing 2 damage, gaining you 3 life, and acting as a one-turn Rishadan Port. In the third case, you're making them waste 2 mana, which is about half a turn at the point at which they'd have 3 Goblins out, to kill a dude that's still going to damage them anyway. Having to Gempalm him could mean that they don't play a Ringleader until a turn later, buying you more time to find that last burn spell or two. Any time/mana your opponent spends killing Brigand is time/mana they're not using to win the game, which buys you more turns to pull off the kill.

Of the big three, Brigand is probably weakest against Thresh, where they can just block him with Werebear to no effect. However, if the Thresh player is blocking with their Werebear, then you're probably in okay shape anyway, since that means the Werebear is not, in fact, killing you.

So after all that, I'll present a decklist:

10-creature Burninator

15 Mountain
3 Barbarian Ring

2 Spark Elemental
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Keldon Brigand

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Magma Jet
4 Incinerate
4 Flamebreak
4 Fireblast

Sideboard
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Sirocco
4 Culling Scales
3 Pyroclasm/Cave-In


Other things in testing:
3/3 split between Fanatic and Sparky
-1 Brigand, +1 Mountain
Some number of Cave-In main, replacing/supplementing Flamebreak. (Possibly go to 5 sweep effects, 3/2 Flamebreak/Cave-In, or somesuch)

Discuss!

[Eldariel]

With Brigand, I'd honestly play Rolling Earthquake over Flamebreak simply because you can Rolling for 2 and swing for 3 with Brigand instead of having it just blocked, or die to Flamebreak. Hitting flyers is a bonus too.

[Iranon]

It is definitely interesting. The main problem I see is that we already have 2 cards that are very good but don't do much the turn you play them in Mogg Fanatic and Rift Bolt.

On the other hand, I consider Pulse of the Forge to be sadly underplayed given how awesome it is... and more delayed damage makes it even more attractive.

[Finn]

Keldon Brigand, and to some extent Rift Bolt both have the same problems. They delay you. This is especially true if you plan to play Burn with Baubles. BTW, I tested this plan and it is the faster and more consistent build. However, it does not like sorcery-speed stuff. Both of these spells are not compatible. And while Rift Bolt is capable of dealing its entire 3 damage immediately for extra mana - albeit at sorcery speed, the brigand is not.

So the question is: Is it worth deviating from the best consistency/speed route to use these cards? Even if they are good enough to run, are they good enough to reroute the deck?

[Clark Kant]

Depp, your build is off to a decent start, but it could be better if you cut Browbeat.

17-18 Mountains is plenty if you're running Magma Jet and have a curve that tops off at 2. Honestly, this is the only reason I would EVER cut Flamebreak.

Having to waste 3 more land slots that could be burn for the sake of Browbeat just isn't worth it. A well built burn deck has enough cards to kill your opponent by turn 3-4 everytime. Browbeat just slows your kill by a full turn.

In it's place, I would run Keldon Brigand, 5 damage for 2 mana, that at worst case scenario deals 2 damage for 2 mana is nothing to scoff at.

In place of the slots you freedup, I would run 4 Pyrostatic Pillar. All good decks have a cruve that tops off at 3-4. A second turn Pillar is good for 6 points of damage most games. Even if your opponenent plays Disenchant, Brainstorming into it and casting it still deals 4 damage to them.

So if you wanted to cut Flamebreak, I would run...

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Spark Elemental
4 Keldon Brigand
4 Pyrostatic Pillar - What do you guys think about maindecking this card?
4 Magma Jet
4 Flame Rift
4 Fireblast
2 Price of Progress
18 Mountain

[Bane of the Living]

It might be worth mentioning we recently had a burn player go 4-0 into top 8 then take I think 4th place. He ran maindeck Mox Monkies and Ball Lightning. He beat me playing Gobs having Chalice out both games because of these great anti chalice cards.

[rsaunder]

It might be worth mentioning we recently had a burn player go 4-0 into top 8 then take I think 4th place. He ran maindeck Mox Monkies and Ball Lightning. He beat me playing Gobs having Chalice out both games because of these great anti chalice cards.Mox monkey as an an anti-chalice card? It gets countered at 1 too, so I guess I just don't understand. Did you get one off at 2 or something?

[Bane of the Living]

On the play you effectivly have 2 turns to play him since I cant accelerate a Chalice for 1 on the first turn. Otherwise he needs to be in your opening grip. He played him maindeck, and I dont see a reason to pull him out against a deck playing Vial.

[DarkAkuma]

I dont get that either. Chalice has been the only thing i ever worry about in my meta when im runnig burn, and its when its set at 1 when it slows me down. Mox monkey would be total useless unless you get it out early, and for some reason your opponant doesent take care of it before they drop chalice.

Ive been running Mogg Salvage board to take care of it, cause wheter its free or not, the chalice dies, and well, with all the blue here, it is rarely not free.

But still, i hate scooping to chalice first game so much, that i run 2 Scrap now maindeck. (Funny. How i started running i was cause i had it fliped over as a proxy for something, cause its just a jank common, and forgot to swap it out before the tourney started, so i flipped it over and played it as is. Im so lucky it was a red card, let alone something that proved to be useful.)

Anyway, alittle more on topic. Im not sure how the new creature will do in burn, but ill certainly give it a try. But first i have have to give burn a try without wastelands. I hate doing it, but to often lately they hinder me more then help. Acctualy, about the only matchup i think wasteland is usefull in anymore is Farie Stompy (take out the citys, and let them kill themselves with tombs.)

[outsideangel]

Keldon Brigand, and to some extent Rift Bolt both have the same problems. They delay you. This is especially true if you plan to play Burn with Baubles. BTW, I tested this plan and it is the faster and more consistent build. However, it does not like sorcery-speed stuff. Both of these spells are not compatible. And while Rift Bolt is capable of dealing its entire 3 damage immediately for extra mana - albeit at sorcery speed, the brigand is not.

So the question is: Is it worth deviating from the best consistency/speed route to use these cards? Even if they are good enough to run, are they good enough to reroute the deck?

I'm not entirely sure that bauble burn is the best version out there. It really, in all honesty, seems to do very little that regular burn doesn't do. Baubles let you cycle through the deck, sure, but they also slow you down because you have to wait to draw that card off of bauble, when you could just be playing burn now. As you mentioned, it also dissuades you from playing many of the sorcery-speed spells that can be pretty powerful. Lava Spike isn't a whole lot different from Lightning Bolt if you plan to throw both at the face anyway, which is where your burn should be going.

Having a lot of 1cc burn is good, but we also want a nice curve. Remember, we can and will be making that second and third land drop fairly consistently, so I think it's okay to pack more spells in the 2cc range than just Jet. With such a tempo-oriented deck as burn, I like to be maximizing my lands by using all my avaliable resources to play the most powerful effects possible, particularly against decks like Gro where it's very possible to run out of steam and enter into topdeck mode.

On the other hand, bauble burn is certainly a viable choice and you just can't argue with someone's personal testing experiences. I think in the end it might be a matter of preference, as I feel that both versions have subtle strengths and weaknesses, but not enough to make a signifigant difference.

Moving on, Clark Kant, I would never, ever cut Flamebreak, at least not until the meta changes. It's such an important card against Goblins: it comes down turn 3 and provides you a brief (1-2 turn window) to finish your opponent off before they can recover. You will not be able to get that elusive turn 4 kill every game; in my personal experience with the deck, you tend to win a bit later, often around turns 5-6, so Flamebreak really helps there.

I also personally hate Flame Rift, again because of the prevalence of Goblins. The possibility of a Goblins player outright racing you is very real, and Flame Rift doesn't particularly make that situation any better. (Especially when you could it with Pillar!) I know some people swear by it, but I just take issue with running a card that's sub-par in one of the most common matchups just because it's very slightly better in another. I would much rather play a simple Incinerate than deal 4 to myself just to slide an extra point in there.

Finally, I think some number of Barbarian Rings should be almost an autoinclude, unless your metagame specifically packs a ton of non-basic hate. Ring is so, so good for getting in that extra 2 points of damage to finish the game: it's essentially free damage, card-advantage wise, because it doubles as a land drop, and it's colorless and, barring Stifle, uncounterable damage. I think 3 is just about the right number, since you never want to see two unless it gets to the very, very late game, but you usually do want to see one right about the time you hit threshold.

Maybe Jon will chime in and share some of his experiences with the deck, since it seems to love him so very much.

[Clark Kant]

I think your comment regarding Flamebreak is better directed against DeppChef

He was the one that said it wasn't working where he played and he wanted to cut it, I merely suggested some alternate cards he could try in it's place if he wished.

Other than that, I agree with everything you posted except in regards to Flame Rift, and especially regarding Barbarian Ring.

I like running 4 Fireblast. Many games, I never get past the second land drop, nor do I need to due to my incredibly low curve 20 1cc spells, 14 2cc spells, 4 3cc spells, 4 0cc spells (Fireblast). Barbarian Rings not only require a mana to activate, thus eating up two whole mana, an entire turns worth of mana to deal 3 damage, but they can make you unable to cast your Fireblast, delaying your kill by a turn or more. That's simply unaccepatble. Add in the fact that you can't even use Barbarian Ring without THreshold, which also means possibly running Fetches and the card has become very unappealing for me.

[Zilla]

I agree with everything outsideangel said in his last post, excepting the part about Barbarian Ring.

As long as Goblins remains the most-played deck in the format, you absolutely need Flamebreak to stay consistently on top of them. You can race them without it, but instead of a very positive matchup it becaomes a roughly even one without Flamebreak. Unless you know you won't be facing Goblins, you should be running them, probably as a 3-of in the main with a 4th in the board.

Spot on about Flame Rift also. Burn is not the fastest aggro deck in the format. It's on par with many of them, yes. But by running Flame Rift, you only help them win the damage race. At best you break even, at worst you win your opponent the game. Again, as long as Goblins is prevalent, the card is unplayable in my book.

As for Barbarian Ring, it's a great card, but it opens you up to Goblins' Wasteland, Thresh's Pithing Needles, lowers the likelihood of a turn 3 Flamebreak against Goblins, and lowers the likelihood of casting a second Fireblast in all matchups. The benefits simply don't outweigh the disadvantages, in my opinion.

[DarkAkuma]

I too wasent a fan of Barbarian Ring. But a couple weeks ago i felt i needed to up the red land count in my deck, but didnt want to lose any burn. They solved the problem perfectly. I since played the deck in a tourney and now i am a fan. My mana screws were less, i could suddenly kill Mother of Runes and Meddleing Mages without my opponant haveing a say so. And it deffinantly nice to look down and see one sitting there when calculating up your exspected damage over the next few turns, helping ensure that you know exactly when your going to win.

The getting threshold isnt to big of an issue, if your playing baubles that is. The baubles help ensure you have threshold by mid-lategame, the time you would acctualy need to use the ring for burn instead of mana. The fact that thier not mountains and not able to be sacced to Fireblast is is a small point. It only realy starts mattering if you play wastelands as well, like i did. Anyway, i deffinantly reccamend playing atleast 2, but probly 3. The next time i play burn a a tourney this is the list ill probly play, give or take some board changes.

15x Mountain
3x Barbarian Ring

4x Urza's Bauble
4x Mishra's Bauble

4x Fire Blast
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Lava Spike (Chain Lightning if i owned any)
3x Magma Jet
4x Incinerate
4x Flamebreak (Rolling Earthquake if i had these too)
4x Rift Bolt
1X Fork
2x Scrap

Sideboard:
2x Sulfuric Vortex
2x Pyroblast
2x Red Elemental Blast
4x Anarchy
3x Mogg Salvage
2x Steam Blast (Flamebreak if i had Rolling Earthquakes)

I have alot of blue in my meta, and goblins shows up rarely. Honestly, most of the decks havent faired well against my burn, cept for the occasional Farie Stompy getting out a double chalice, and me not drawing a single copy of the answers i sided in, or just plain mana screw (hence my somewhat increased land count and main deck artifact hate)

But a 4c Land still did show up a couple weeks ago and beat me in the final 2. First round he just let me burn him until he could decree for a bunch, then proceeded to Absorb 2 of my Flamebreaks in a row, then he just swung for a few turns while i was in top deck mode, using a handfull of counters to help make sure that 6 life swing never came back near my favor. Game 2, he cast a 2nd turn Chill, followed by a 3rd turn chill. When i finaly had enough land to start casting my 1cc burn, he started in with his lone boarded in Pulse of the Fields, followed a few turns later by a 3rd, and eventualy the 4th Chills. I never did draw the Vortexs i boarded in, not that id be able to resolve one against chills and a handfull of counters.

Anyway, needless to say Chills and life gain are the next problem i need to work on now thati feel i have enough answers for chalice.

[Zilla]

3x Magma Jet

For the love of god, never ever run less than 4 Magma Jet in a straight Burn deck. Never. For any reason. Unless they print 9 more functionally identical Lightning Bolt. Maybe then. But probably not.

Behind Lightning Bolt and Fireblast, Magma Jet is the best card in this deck, because it's one of the few cards abvailable to red that ups your consistency and allows you to filter dead draws.

Also, 15 Mountains + Fireblast = bad math. Either add more Mountains or drop a Fireblast, because you're going to have trouble consistently casting a second Fireblast when you need to. Anything less than 16-17 Mountains is going to be a real problem. 18 is the ideal minimum to support multiple Fireblasts.

I'd also suggest dropping to 3 maindeck Flamebreaks unless your meta is teeming with Goblins. It's a fantastic card in that matchup, but it's one of your weakest spells overall. You want one to answer Goblins. You don't really want to draw multiples, especially in other matchups.

[DarkAkuma]

For the love of god, never ever run less than 4 Magma Jet in a straight Burn deck. Never. For any reason. Unless they print 9 more functionally identical Lightning Bolt. Maybe then. But probably not.

Behind Lightning Bolt and Fireblast, Magma Jet is the best card in this deck, because it's one of the few cards abvailable to red that ups your consistency and allows you to filter dead draws.

Also, 15 Mountains + Fireblast = bad math. Either add more Mountains or drop a Fireblast, because you're going to have trouble consistently casting a second Fireblast when you need to. Anything less than 16-17 Mountains is going to be a real problem. 18 is the ideal minimum to support multiple Fireblasts.

I'd also suggest dropping to 3 maindeck Flamebreaks unless your meta is teeming with Goblins. It's a fantastic card in that matchup, but it's one of your weakest spells overall. You want one to answer Goblins. You don't really want to draw multiples, especially in other matchups.

Im not to huge a fan of Magma Jet. Never have been. Dont feel the sub par mana/dmg ratio is balanced out enough by the manipulation. I acctualy had it completely out of there, but ended up adding it back in after realiseing it is infact a asset to the deck, though still not convinced its as big a one as people try to claim it is. So im not sure if id go a full 4, but right now all i have is 3 anyway.

Also, i am playing Bauble Burn, not nomal Burn. For that the right number is 17-18 land total. I rarely ever care about casting a second Fireblast. To me its a kill card, and thats it. Has been since i first started playing burn 9 years ago. Only issue ive ever had casting Fireblast is when i would get those realy annoying 3 Wasteland in a row type of draws. Now that ive increased my mountain count by 2, and have only red produceing land, the majority of the problems i would run into should balance out.

I know Flambreak is for Goblins mainly, but i find myself wanting to top deck it far to often to remove it or decrease the number. I may go down to 3, but first i want to test out some of my more recent changes.

[Zilla]

3x Magma Jet

For the love of god, never ever run less than 4 Magma Jet in a straight Burn deck. Never. For any reason. Unless they print 9 more functionally identical Lightning Bolts. Maybe then. But probably not.

Behind Lightning Bolt and Fireblast, Magma Jet is the best card in this deck, because it's one of the few cards available to red that ups your consistency and allows you to filter dead draws.

Also, 15 Mountains + Fireblast = bad math. Either add more Mountains or drop a Fireblast, because you're going to have trouble consistently casting a second Fireblast when you need to. Anything less than 16-17 Mountains is going to be a real problem. 18 is the ideal minimum to support multiple Fireblasts.

I'd also suggest dropping to 3 maindeck Flamebreaks unless your meta is teeming with Goblins. It's a fantastic card in that matchup, but it's one of your weakest spells overall. You want one to answer Goblins. You don't really want to draw multiples, especially in other matchups.

[Tao]

Im not to huge a fan of Magma Jet. Never have been. Dont feel the sub par mana/dmg ratio is balanced out enough by the manipulation.

The "average card" in your deck deals 2 damage, so if you put a Mountain on the bottom of your library it is the same thing as dealing 2 damage to your opponent because you will draw an "average card" instead of the Mountain.

Therefore it has a perfect mana/dmg ratio unless the game ends before you can empty your hand, which rarely happens.

[Finn]

15x Mountain
3x Barbarian Ring

4x Urza's Bauble
4x Mishra's Bauble

Sorry to keep picking on ya dude, but you make my point here.

What people don't realize about Bauble Burn is that the baubles actually DO something. The deck thinning properties of the cards are purely secondary. The ideal play is to land Mishra's Bauble with a fetchland in play. This is a nice turn one play and equally nice when you are approaching topdeck mode. You pop the Bauble on your own turn, looking at your own top card. If you want it, you draw it on the opponent's upkeep. If not, you sac the fetchland. It is a one-card filter with no mana cost at all.

I am astounded to see how many people are not taking advantage of this strategy. It is apparently deleted now, but that is why I made the deck thread in the first place.

[Zilla]

It is apparently deleted now, but that is why I made the deck thread in the first place.
Not deleted. (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3879)

[Firebrothers]

All right all you burn players, this just in. New elvish spirit guide for red in PC. Anyone think burn decks could adopt it and make use of it. Mabey now you can afford some spells that seem one mana too much. This may make chrome mox more usefull as well. What do yall think?

[Iranon]

No no no. Burn runs out of just about all resources at the time it tries to kill. Netting one red mana is an inefficient use of the resource hand cards. Since it can actually beat when topdecked late into the game, it's probably better than the other mana acceleration but a far cry from playable.

[URABAHN]

All right all you burn players, this just in. New elvish spirit guide for red in PC. Anyone think burn decks could adopt it and make use of it. Mabey now you can afford some spells that seem one mana too much. This may make chrome mox more usefull as well. What do yall think?

I don't think Burn needs mana acceleration like Chrome Mox and Simian Spirit Guide mainly because the average casting cost of the spells in Burn are so low.

[Mirrislegend]

I'm pretty new to highly tuned burn decks, and I'm having difficulty with a particular point that I need advice on. Here's what I'm running now:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation

// Lands
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
11 Mountain

// Creatures
4 Mogg Fanatic

// Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Fireblast
4 Incinerate
4 Magma Jet
3 Flamebreak
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
2 Price of Progress

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Anarchy
SB: 2 Pyroclasm

Now, here's my issue: I've been hitting WAY too many lands. Like 5+ every game. While it's very possible that it's the MWS shuffler, I feel like part of it may be that 11th Mountain. I put it in there because I get skittish when I only have 2 more fetchable lands than fetches; I've always built very stable manabases. But from what I vaguely remember from the original FFF thread, 10 Mountains and 8 Fetches is the way to go. And I see other lists running 18 lands also. And, to top it off, if I nix that mountain, the newly opened slot should probably go to Flamebreak, but having 4x 3cc cards in this deck worries me greatly (hence the Pyroclasms in the SB). Anyways, I'd appreciate it if the masters of this deck archetype could clear up this subtlety for me. And, of course, constructive advice from anyone is welcome.

[Iranon]

Not enough 'real' lands doesn't matter at all; the highest number of mountains you might need eventually is four and that mostly for a double fireblast. With 8 baubles, 19 lands are too many even if half of them are fetches.

If you are reluctant to reduce the mana count, there is always Barbarian Ring - it's actually one of the bigger reasons to run Baubles in the first place in my opinion.

[Mirrislegend]

But that opens you up to Wasteland... Isnt that one of the main debates though?

[Zilla]

But that opens you up to Wasteland... Isnt that one of the main debates though?
That and the fact that it makes your Fireblasts less reliable, yes.

[Bane of the Living]

That and the fact that it makes your Fireblasts less reliable, yes.

To play devils advocate... How many times would the double Fireblast issue come up in contrast to Wastelands viability? Id be curious to know, and it should be seriously tested. The burn deck that won undefeated at my store recently did play Wasteland and it did win him a game against me.

[Mirrislegend]

Yea, but Wasteland detracts from PoPftw. And PoP is always ftw. In addition to, of course, the other arguments against Wasteland.

Anyways, I have a question that I think can reveal a lot about the issue of non-basics in Burn:

If, hypothetically, you HAVE to play 4 nonbasic lands in regular, straight up Burn which would it be and why: 4x Wasteland, 4x Rishadan Port, 4x Barbarian Ring, or some combination (have a DAMN good reason if you chose this one).

What about in Bauble Burn? Burn with Flame Rift (yes, yes I know it sucks, but it has its devotees)? Creature-based Burn?

[Clark Kant]

I'm an 18 Mountain man myself. I don't think having to cut 2 burn spells to run 4 wastelands, all while having your PoP do two less damage to your opponent, and sometimes not even getting the second mountain needed for Fireblast is worth it.

I suppose a stronger case could be made for Barbarian Ring is Bauble Burn.

[Drkdstryer]

I could definitely see Barbarian Ring in Bauble Burn, but by the time you get threshold in regular burn you should have won anyway (7x3 = 21), unless you have a Fireblast and 2 mountains in the yard, in which case you don't have the red mana to pop the Ring.

[Finn]

Bauble Burn will certainly have fetchlands as well. It usually gets Threshold by turn 3 or 4, a turn or two before goldfish.

[Mirrislegend]

So then is it worth it for Bauble Burn (my personal choice) to run Barbarian Ring? The deck will surely hit the threshold needed, but is the Ring worth it's intrinsic liabilities?

[Iranon]

In my arrogant opinion, yes. It smoothes out the way the deck plays in being both a mana and a damage source. Wasteland rarely matters if you don't play too many (I would only run 2 because more compromise Fireblast) - you play it last, when you need it as a damage source or the turn you play that crucial Flamebreak.
Yes, it can be wastelanded... but other damage sources aren't able to serve as land at all.

It sure as hell isn't worth playing in regular burn. If I absolutely had to play a nonbasic land in regular Burn... erm, Mishra's factory and Rolling Earthquake. But only under duress (no, not Duress!).

an, oi... I like Flamerift, in a package deal with Pulse of the Forge. Suicide Mono-Red Control for the win!

[Mulletus]

I hate reading through a whole thread.... so if this has been mentioned already I'm sorry. But Gorilla Spirit Shaman (or is it guide) looks like an amazing addition to burn. I have to do more testing... but it seems like the 3rd turn win is much more plausible. I'm not even taking out cards for it... just lands. Who knows... let's start up the debate.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Being lazy isn't really a good excuse to not check over a thread, especially when you are looking for discussion of a new card. You only would have needed to go back to the previous page to see this:


All right all you burn players, this just in. New elvish spirit guide for red in PC. Anyone think burn decks could adopt it and make use of it. Mabey now you can afford some spells that seem one mana too much. This may make chrome mox more usefull as well. What do yall think?


No no no. Burn runs out of just about all resources at the time it tries to kill. Netting one red mana is an inefficient use of the resource hand cards. Since it can actually beat when topdecked late into the game, it's probably better than the other mana acceleration but a far cry from playable.


I don't think Burn needs mana acceleration like Chrome Mox and Simian Spirit Guide mainly because the average casting cost of the spells in Burn are so low.

The reason it ended at that is because both Iranon and Urabahn are essentially right; Burn doesn't want Simian Spirit Guide any more than it already wanted Lotus Petal or Chrome Mox. Iranon's analysis is particularly spot-on. Trading cards for mana goes against the Philosophy of Fire and the format is just not fast enough to warrant any of these cards in a burn deck.

Honestly, if Burn did need to kill by turn 3 in this format, it would be even less viable than it already is.

[Tacosnape]

(Warning: The following post is ridiculously long, complicated, and possibly the product of a deranged mind.)

Simian Spirit Guide is garbage in burn, as is Wasteland. Chrome Mox might be. Here's why.

In order for Burn to consistently win, it needs to be able to pick up as many 10-Card kills as possible. This means Turn 4 on the play, Turn 3 on the draw. 11-Card kills are the absolute minimum (Turn 5 on the play, Turn 4 on the draw) to have a decent chance. Granted, you'll buy time with some things like Lightning Helix, Flamebreak, Sirocco, or what have you, but the 10-card kill is what you should aspire to doing with a Burn deck.

In order to do this, every card in your deck needs to average 2 points of damage. Every card. This includes your Mountains. Often you'll need less because most decks will fetchland themselves down to 18 or so, but calculating this at 2 will provide more of a cushion for error.

The only thing it doesn't include, if you run them, is Urza's Bauble. Urza's Bauble is calculated at doing slightly less damage than the average card in the rest of your deck, and shouldn't be factored in to the 10 cards. The reason Urza's Bauble is calculated at doing slightly less is occasionally your 10th Non-Bauble card will come up being a Bauble at the wrong time. (Don't get me wrong. I'm still all in favor of Baubles in burn. The hand consistency is worth it.) It should be noted that Mishra's Bauble should be calculated more or less as average with the rest of the deck, as the trick it does with Fetchlands compensates for the occasional ripping of a Bauble when you need a burn spell most.

Mountains (Or fetchlands or plateaus) are lowering the deck's average damage, but are necessary in order to cast the burn spells. Ideally, you want to see three land on your first three turn and then never see one again. Sometimes you'll see four. Sometimes you'll see two. Sometimes you'll see three, but staggered apart. On the average, however, you'll have between 8 and 9 mana on your first four turns, and 5 to 6 on your first three.

For the 10-Card kill, that's what you have to work with. Killing your opponent with 8-9 Mana on the play, and 5-6 on the draw. As I don't like never being able to pull off a 10-Card Kill on the draw, I try to set up my burn deck to where it can kill with 6 mana in 10 cards. Theoretically your average would need to be 0.6 per card in order for this to work. This, however, is almost impossible, so I upped it to 0.7. This means the average real casting cost of a card in your deck (Again excluding the Baubles which are calculated at the average cost of the rest of your deck, but including Land and spells), needs to be about 0.7. Fireblast should be regarded as 0, though exceptions will undoubtedly arise where you get stuck on a double Fireblast.

So your limits in designing a burn deck should be as follows.
Absolute Minimum average damage per card: 2.
Absolute Maximum average casting cost per card: 0.7.

Simian Spirit Guide will drastically alter this system. It lowers the total amount of mana you get in your 10-Card kill. It doesn't speed you up. It slows you down. Occasionally the guide will boost your killing potential, but on the long average it will actually slow you down.

Chrome Mox, while being a permanent source of mana and increasing the deck's speed, forces you into a 9-Card kill for the same number of turns. While this isn't drastically impossible, it's harder, and drawing two is disastrous.

Wasteland is stupid. Your deck consists almost entirely of spells that cost exactly one red mana. Wasteland has an average damage of 0 and only increases your mana production on spells that have a colorless mana in them. Avoid running it.

There are, of course, tons of other factors. Fetchlands raise your chances of not topdecking land, but also increase the chance of you not living until a fifth turn slightly, so it's easiest just to calculate them at 0. Magma Jet's slightly higher than its actual 2, as it improves your chances of peeling what you need. Rift Bolt is slightly lower than its actual 3 and suspend cost of R, as occasionally you'll draw it on your 10th card. Price of Progress's damage can't be accurately measured, since its relative to the opponent's deck. This system isn't exact, but it's a good guide.

Now let's look at a sample burn deck and calculate the average cost / damage of the card. We'll ignore the sideboard for now. Keep in mind I don't suggest this is an optimal build by any means, just a demonstrative one.

SAMPLE BURN:

10 Mountain (Damage 0, Cost 0)
4 Wooded Foothills (Damage 0, Cost 0)
4 Bloodstained Mire (Damage 0, Cost 0)
4 Urza's Bauble (Damage 2, Cost 0.9)
4 Mishra's Bauble (Damage 2, Cost 0.9)

4 Lightning Bolt (Damage 3, Cost 1)
4 Chain Lightning (Damage 3, Cost 1)
4 Lava Spike (Damage 3, Cost 1)
4 Rift Bolt (Damage 3, Cost 1)
4 Incinerate (Damage 3, Cost 2)
4 Magma Jet (Damage 2, Cost 2)
4 Fireblast (Damage 4, Cost 0)
3 Price of Progress (Damage 4, Cost 2)
3 Flamebreak (Damage 3, Cost 3)

(Note that Price was calculated to find an average of 2 Nonbasics on your opponent per shot).

The Baubles are calculated after the rest of the deck is calculated as a 52 card deck, then the deck is recalculated with the averages for the Baubles.

Average Damage: 2.02. It should be noted that with Magma Jet's ability to pick out optimal cards, this will be slightly higher. This is acceptable average damage.

Average Cost: 0.9. Too often your hand is going to be clogged with more 2CC burn spells than you can play. Flamebreak helps here against some decks, as it will give you more chances to safely go into an 11-Card kill.

Therefore I would conclude that the above list has just about the right amount of damage capacity, but is too slow. I've run into similar conclusions about most of my burn decks. Without running less dependable burn spells like Shock and Spark Elemental, it's very very difficult to even get Average Damage of 2 and average cost of 0.7. Granted, the above deck will periodically get solid draws and wreck the opposition, but it won't do it consistently enough to get the 10-card kill more often than not.

Your challenge, Burn players, is to speed the deck up without losing average damage. I might suggest having Chrome Moxes in sideboard to board in for land when you're on the draw, but it wouldn't solve the game one problems.

[Kazadoom]

I usually play something like this Rw-Burn

---0cc---
4xFireblast
---1cc---
4xLightning bolt
4xChain Lightning
4xRift bolt
4xLava Spike
4xMogg Fanatic
1xEarthquake
---2cc---
4xLightning Helix
4xFlame Rift
4xMagma Jet
---3cc---
4xFlamebreak
---Lands---
4xBloodstained Mire
4xWodded Foothills
2xPlateau
1xBarbarian Ring
8xMountain

No idea how my metagame is at the moment as i didnt play for about 5 month.
The only thing which is in question is mogg fanatic im thinking about switching it with incinerate/price of progress?

SB:
4xPrice of Progress
4xDisenchant
4xPyroclastic Pillar
2xJötun Grunt (would like to up the count)
1xGaea's Blessing (hate high tide^^)

Ans as i got no exp. with the bauble build does it really make such a difference?

[blitz]

I've got a question...

I don't really play burn, but I just played this guy who was using a card I haven't seen in any of these recent lists...

Scent of Cedar, is it any good?

[DarkAkuma]

You probly mean Scent of Cinder, and no, it doesent make the cut. It would only be good if you could garentee 4 red cards in hand after casting it, which is hard to have with burn if your playing it right. Second turn is about the only time that would happen, and it would get weaker from then on, makeing it a horrable topdeck.

[Lego]

1xGaea's Blessing (hate high tide^^)

That's going to do virtually nothing for your matchup, since you don't provide any disruption, just a clock. If you want to beat them, play 4 Blasts. Along with your speedy clock, you'll probably 50/50 the match.


I've got a question...

I don't really play burn, but I just played this guy who was using a card I haven't seen in any of these recent lists...

Scent of Cedar, is it any good?

It's Scent of Cinder, and it's not great. Assume the best possible scenario, you start with 7 cards, on the play, drop a land and a burn spell, 5 cards left. Draw to 6, drop a land and play this, you've got 4 cards left in hand, so it's 4 damage for one card and 2 mana if you have no other lands in hand. Not horrible in the abstract, but chances are you'll have another land in hand, so it's 3 damage for 2 mana, which isn't great. It's better if you are on the draw, and even better if you skip your first turn play (which you should never do) but it's never going to be great. Even worse if you play baubles.

If your deck actually gets to the lategame, it's the shittiest topdeck in the world. Just say no.

EDIT: Seems Akuma answered first. What he said.

[Poron]

to beat Solidarity play 4x Pyrostatic Pillar SB

[lillelassie]

To beat solidarity play 4 sirocco SB

I have also tinkered around with 4 Pyrostatic Pillars MD, since it typically does the same as Flame Rift + it rapes threshold and combo soooo much. Pillar is so great in a combo-control meta, but weak against goblins and other forms of aggro... besides it's a horrible topdeck.

[TheRock]

Hmmm, this is definitely productive. I'm short on time, and I will edit this post later.

Tacosnape - You don't have Flame Rift in your build, although you calculated Price to do the exact same anyway. What I don't understand is why you are running Flamebreak in the first place IF the "turn 4 on play/turn 3 on draw" formula needs to hold up.

Flamebreak is the ONLY spell you can cast on turn three if you choose to cast it. The chance that Goblins will beat you on turn three is about 1/8. That's a low percentage. If it comes down to it, you only need one Seal of Fire or Jet to a specific Goblin and you get a Time Walk --- another card and untap step.

In that case (Goblins), Flamebreak is a single-triple Time Walk. But that won't hold true for combo decks, as they simply don't run creatures. Granted, it does put Threshold in a weird situation too, but it can easily be Dazed away.

The total cost of everything in your deck is 55 according to your logic. With Cave-In, it's 46, and you still screw Goblins. You just pitch your worst card away.

[Kazadoom]

to beat Solidarity play 4x Pyrostatic Pillar SB

my SB:
SB:
4xPrice of Progress
4xDisenchant
4xPyroclastic Pillar
2xJötun Grunt (would like to up the count)
1xGaea's Blessing (hate high tide^^)

i play it!
Although i like sirocco its too specific in my opinion. And what's bad with the singe Blessing? okay i can draw it but thats a 20% chance to draw it okay by turn 4 but there i can already have but some pressure on them forcing him to go off =>maybe runnung into my Blessing
If i draw it its bad i know but dont u think it's worth the rist and the one siderboardslot? (add the 4 Pillars)

Flambreak just gives you some time (same with Helix) it's the reason you can win against aggro decks cause you most of the time force them to overextend.But in the other hand its a RRR => 3 dmg spell in some situations which is not that bad for the destruction it can cause!

To the MD

Is goblin fanatic worth the slots? and how to replace him?

[outsideangel]

1x Gaea's Blessing is bad because it doesn't actually do anything. Solidarity with just win around it. It's essentially a wasted slot, and if you board it in and draw it, it's going to lose you games.

As I've said before, on Flame Rift, it's 1 more damage than Incinerate, except it will randomly lose you the game sometimes.

Flamebreak is, unfortunately, a necessary evil in this format. There will be hands where you will be unable to race Goblins' ridiculous starts. Flamebreak gives you and out and lets you stall for time (typically between 1-3 turns) while you finish the kill. Ideally, I'd love to cut Flamebreak from the deck, but I just don't see it happening until the deck can reliably, consistently race the Goblins god-hand.

Anyway, the list I've been toying around with a bit looks something like:

Lands
7 Mountain
3 Barbarian Ring
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills

0cc
4 Fireblast
4 Mishra's Bauble

1cc
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt

2cc
4 Magma Jet
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Incinerate
3 Price of Progress

4cc
3 Flamebreak

Basically, I like the little bit of extra card selection that Mishra's Bauble + Fetchlands provides. Urza's Bauble, on the other hand, has no effect beyond deck thinning, at the price of slowing down all the sorcery-speed burn. Rather than run the full 8 baubles, then, I decided to try a compromise and just run the 4 that have an effect.

Probably the strangest looking card is Keldon Marauders. I know a lot of people were skeptical about its inclusion when it was announced, and most probably still are. However, I must say, I like the Maruaders so far. 2 damage for 2 mana is somewhat subpar, but 5 damage for 2 mana is quite good.

Additionally, using the Marauders as one of the burn spells makes me feel comfortable cutting a Flamebreak, since the Marauders can actually act like a one-turn fog effect against Goblins, who won't want to swing a Warchief into a 3/3 creature that will die soon anyway. Worst case scenario is that he sticks about to chump a Threshed Werebear for a turn, and I would argue that if they have Threshold and are swinging in, you're probably going to lose regardless.

Note that this is very much different from the list Jon's been playing at the Frog, which sacrifices speed for some modicum of protection via Ensnaring Bridge. I believe that list does slightly better against creature strategies because if you run low on gas you can simply sit behind a bridge until you draw into enough burn to win.

We've talked a bit about turning that deck into something altogether a bit different: a sort of slower (fundamental turn of 4-5) control-ish Burn deck, and looked at tricky cards like Fork, and constant damage sources like Scroll. In testing the sort of deck tends to be much stronger against aggro, control, and aggro-control decks, but is just plain awful in the combo matchup.

So the current question surrounding Burn is this: if we go for balls-to-the-wall, breakneck speed, is the deck fast enough to race both aggro and combo, while still having mid-game gas vs. aggro control? If this is not the case, is it worth sacrificing one of these matchups (namely, combo) to improve the others? Or would this just land the deck into the same boat as MWC?

[TheRock]

1x Gaea's Blessing is bad because it doesn't
As I've said before, on Flame Rift, it's 1 more damage than Incinerate, except it will randomly lose you the game sometimes.

Flamebreak is, unfortunately, a necessary evil in this format. There will be hands where you will be unable to race Goblins' ridiculous starts. Flamebreak gives you and out and lets you stall for time (typically between 1-3 turns) while you finish the kill. Ideally, I'd love to cut Flamebreak from the deck, but I just don't see it happening until the deck can reliably, consistently race the Goblins god-hand.

Ehhh. It sounds like a conflict of interest. I don't agree/disagree with anything in particular, but this deck needs a logic change.

From my Spring Tide experience, it takes just one Snap, one FoW, or usually just one Cloud of Faeries to stop the turn 3 win that Goblins has. For this deck, it just takes one burn spell. What do you get in return? A Time Walk. You get to untap your lands, draw a new card, use that Bauble you topped last turn...

What I like about Flamebreak is that it can give this deck multiple extra turns to work with. But the problem with Flamebreak is that it throws your mana-to-damage ratio right out the window. I agree with Tacosnape. As it stands right now, Burn can't win FAST ENOUGH. Is Flamebreak consistent at giving you lots of extra turns or not?

The Baubles are an excellent idea --- I love it. Bridge is an excellent idea for a slower approach to the deck. It seems like maindeck Pillars would solve a lot of the combo matchup problems, Bridge or not, since you have that extra burn to couple with it.

I'm not an expert, but this is my two cents. Thanks for reading it anyway though.

[Tacosnape]

Hmmm, this is definitely productive. I'm short on time, and I will edit this post later.

Tacosnape - You don't have Flame Rift in your build, although you calculated Price to do the exact same anyway. What I don't understand is why you are running Flamebreak in the first place IF the "turn 4 on play/turn 3 on draw" formula needs to hold up.

Flamebreak is the ONLY spell you can cast on turn three if you choose to cast it. The chance that Goblins will beat you on turn three is about 1/8. That's a low percentage. If it comes down to it, you only need one Seal of Fire or Jet to a specific Goblin and you get a Time Walk --- another card and untap step.

In that case (Goblins), Flamebreak is a single-triple Time Walk. But that won't hold true for combo decks, as they simply don't run creatures. Granted, it does put Threshold in a weird situation too, but it can easily be Dazed away.

The total cost of everything in your deck is 55 according to your logic. With Cave-In, it's 46, and you still screw Goblins. You just pitch your worst card away.

It should be noted, and I said, the build I posted was a sample burn deck I made up off the top of my head. It is by no means "My" burn deck. I would never run the above build. My burn build gets its 10-Card kills. I don't run slow, underdamaging cards like Magma Jet, and I run quicker, riskier cards like Spark Elemental.

Flamebreak, as you said, has the X-factor of allowing you to wait for 11 or 12-card kills against a lot of janky aggro decks. But against a control or combo deck, it's just 3 for 3. The system isn't perfect, because there are so many X-factors. It's just a vague guideline to tell you how fast you can wreck face. I vary between boarding it and maindecking a few, depending on my mood.

A large factor is if you play burn as a control deck at all. I don't. I play it as combo. I play it to kill, and if cards like Flamebreak buy me time along the way, so be it.

[Clark Kant]

I'm curious then, what is your burn list.

I run riskier cards like Spark Elemental.

I even run techy stuff like Pyrostatic Pillar.

And I still have room to run Magma Jet.

The thing is, both cards take up 8 slots total, but they also work very poorly with the 8 Baubles. I've found that if you run too many noninstants in Bauble Burn, you make the deck very inconsistent, which is why I opt out of Baubles for that configuration.

So I would be interesting in seeing your 10 card kill list.

[Tacosnape]

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
9 Mountain

4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Spark Elemental
4 Price of Progress
4 Fireblast
3 Firebolt
1 Cave-In
1 Fork
1 Flamebreak

SB:
3 Flamebreak
4 Sirocco
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pithing Needle

Average Damage: 2.04
Average Cost: 0.69

Spark Elemental may be risky, but he's fast. If he doesn't connect you're going to gain a little time from his being blocked/removed (Unless your opponent has Silver Knight on the table, but hey, I said he's risky.) It's an easy board-out when you don't need him.

Firebolt may seem novel or just plain bad, but it's a fast 2 and it's better than Shock, and if you hit a major land pocket it'll give you an extra shock to the head whereas you'd run out of resources otherwise. I constantly switch between 3 of these and 1 Cave-In to 2 and 2, and I can never decide which I like better.

Cave-In's card toss sucks, to be sure, which is why I only maindeck one (Or two, max). However, it's a mana-free Steam Blast and is a godsend against Goblins.

Flamebreak's single copy is maindecked because I want four in my 75 and can't fit all four in my sideboard. I board it in against most random small aggro decks.

Fork is interesting and hard to calculate. I calculate it at about 3.3 damage. If I have a Fireblast, it's obviously 4, but to be on the safe side, I calculate it a bit low, as sometimes it'll have to copy a Bolt. On a rare occasion I'll Fork a Cave-In. I hate it in multiples, so I'd never run more than 1-2.

Pithing Needle is for Jitte, Rune Red, or whatever else. Shattering Spree's in board for Chalice. Sirocco goes in for Price against Solidarity.

[outsideangel]

How much would you say the Baubles slow you down, given that most of your deck is sorcery speed?

You've got 13 cards that Bauble doesn't delay a turn, and one of those is Fork. Almost all of your 3-for-1s need to be played during your main phase.

The general assumption is that Baubles are free, but in fact they can, quite often I've found, cost you tempo.

Is their deck-thinning effect worth it?

[Tacosnape]

How much would you say the Baubles slow you down, given that most of your deck is sorcery speed?

You've got 13 cards that Bauble doesn't delay a turn, and one of those is Fork. Almost all of your 3-for-1s need to be played during your main phase.

The general assumption is that Baubles are free, but in fact they can, quite often I've found, cost you tempo.

Is their deck-thinning effect worth it?

This is an incorrect grasp of what the Baubles do in this deck. Baubles work very similar to Threshold's Cantrips (Although incredibly less effective)

First of all, Baubles aren't delaying my spells a turn unless I topdeck them when and only when I don't have other spells in my hand to play. All Baubles in my opening hand I use immediately. I rarely use the Mishra's Bauble/Fetchland trick, but it's nice in a pinch. Their cantrip effect will be felt by turn two. I'll spend turn one on Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Rift Bolt, Spark Elemental, or Lava Spike, of which I run a total of 20.

A Bauble topdecked on turn 2 is not a disaster. The mana for turn two can be spent playing double 1-mana shots, Price of Progress, or Fork on a suspended Rift Bolt. Likewise, the Bauble on Turn Three will likely not hurt me, as I still should have spells to play.

A bauble topdecked on turn four is bad, but as I do have several instants, it's not a disaster.

The point is, I don't have to cast the spell on the opponent's upkeep if I have a spell to cast this turn, which I usually do.

[Clark Kant]

First of all, 90% of your spells are 0cc or 1cc. You actually have a lower curve than 9-land stompy, which runs off of 9 lands + 4 Land Grant.

I think you can drop well below 17 lands.

Both Cave-In and Firebolt seem really bad. You're never going to have the mana to hardcast Cave-In or Flashback Firebolt, and trading two cards to deal two damage to your opponent just seems bad. I would run either Incinerate, Flame Rift, Pyrostatic Pillar or perhaps Keldon Brigand.

[outsideangel]

We've been looking at a list with MD pillar, actually. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Clark Kant]

I can already tell you that Pyrostatic Pillar works incredibly well in normal burn. I've been maindecking for a while now.

Not sure about Bauble Burn. I thought the main point of Baubles was that you can still cast your instants at the beginning of your opponent's upkeep so you don't have to worry about being slowed down. But you guys keep cutting instants left and right. :confused:

[Dr. Math]

Well, after finishing all the required reading (20 pages + 3 on Bauble Burn), I've decided to register and post the list I've currently been testing. I'll just start by firing out the list and then move to card explanation plus some pre-emptive thoughts [sorry in advance for the length of my first post]...

Doc's Bauble Burn
12 Mountain
03 Bloodstained Mire
03 Wooded Foothills

04 Mishra's Bauble
04 Urza's Bauble

04 Chain Lightning
03 Fireblast
02 Flame Rift
03 Flamebreak
02 Fork
04 Incinerate
04 Lava Spike
04 Lightning Bolt
04 Magma Jet
04 Skullscorch

I won't normally post a sideboard since I believe that they are very dependant on a specific meta, but I think Price of Progress, a blue hoser, an artifact hoser, and something like Tormod's Crypt are all typical additions.

Card Choices
Mountain, Chain Lightning, Fireblast, Incinerate, Lava Spike, Lightning Bolt - burn staples
Mishra's Bauble, Urza's Bauble - bauble package allowing us to improve our odds
Fetches - playable for more deck thinning plus they make the mana base more efficient
Magma Jet - card filtering in red is a welcome addition (I am in the camp that this is a staple, but didn't list it there since I'm new and don't want to offend anyone - yet)
Flame Rift - next best burn
Fork - awsome utility
Skullscorch - disruption in red is NOT a bad thing

Now, before I open my list up to flaming (pun intended), I'll try to answer the questions I know will come up.

Why only 6 fetches? Good question. I want an effecient mana base, but not one that is going to cause problems. At six fetches with 18 lands, I maximize my odds of having 2 lands on turn 2, while still having a shot at 3 lands early, and minimize my chances of hitting land pockets early and 'fizzling'. Increasing the number of fetches changes those odds, granted it's not a lot, but I am looking to balance two effects - not maximize one. Currently, my testing has shown that 18 lands may be too many (the Bauble thinning is a powerful effect). If that trend continues, I would drop a fetch and run 17 lands.

How can you run sorceries plus Baubles? I don't know how you can't. Most of burn's most effecient spells are, unfortunately, sorceries. Not running them means you aren't taking advantage of the Bauble-effect. It is important to remember that the Baubles generate NO REAL card advantage - they can't/won't speed us up since it's the inherent effeciency of our spells that provides our clock (Even if we have a deck full of Bolts, you can't win before turn 4 unless your opponent damages himself). The Baubles don't cost us a card or mana and increase our odds of drawing ANY of the spells in our deck helping make sure we draw 'useful' spells. I really hope they print more. If I'm missing something about the instant speed thing, please let me know as I'm still curious.

Only 3 Fireblast? Yes. Fireblast is one of the best spells in the deck, I agree with that. 4 damage for 0 mana makes it a very powerful spell. But it consumes an extremely valuable resource in an extremely effecient deck. I will go out on a limb and say that I NEVER intend to hard cast this (which is why I ignore its printed mana cost in avg cost calculations). I have found that getting one off in a game is essentially signalling 'All-In' to my opponent. Casting the second one is usually done in response to a counter and says "Counter it and I give up." I would really rather Fork the first in response of cast Flame Rift after the counter resolves against it and have at least a chance to win later. With the increase in draw from the Baubles that I have seen, I may reduce this number to 2.

Why Fork? Fork has more utility for a red deck than any other spell I've come across. It's additional burn, it's potentially a counter spell, it could act as a draw spell. It's randomly awesome, just like Gearheart professes about Twincast in the Solidarity thread (that's my other deck and I read those 55 pages too). Finishing a game by floating 2, sacing your Mountains, casting Fireblast and Forking Fireblast is just wild. It's not a spell you NEED to cast though, so I like 2 in the deck (1-ofs are truly just too random).

Skullscorch is BAD, you should drop those. (Nobody would ask about them - they'd just tell me to use something else) I'm here to tell you, this IS one of the better spells we have at our disposal. Nobody wants to see a turn 2 Hymn, NOBODY. Skullscorch gives them a choice - shoot yourself in the foot or play by MY rules. It's great against combo, it rocks against control, and is even nice early against aggro (love seeing a warchief or ringleader hit the bin). I started testing it as a 4-of but have always worried about the effectiveness of the second one. Testing has shown that the second one is usually gg against everything but aggro. This is likely because with our clock - the second one is still being cast early on turn 3-5. Combo HAS to take the damage from the second one since their hand is even more tuned and Control has a tough decision if they can't counter it (Force is crap against it). I'm still not entirely convinced that this is a 4-of. I could see dropping to 3.

Right now I see the potential of opening up 3 slots - -1 Fetch, -1 Fireblast, -1 Skullscorch. But what to try? I have tried Rift Bolt (too slow) and Price of Progress (too narrow for main deck). I am currently testing Conjurer's Bauble (1 mana investment - NEVER put a card back), Chain of Plasma, Thunderbolt. What do you guys think? Ideas?

Again, sorry for the novel. Hopefully you guys won't hold that against me :frown: and will provide some much needed insight. I'll answer other questions too.

Dr. Math

[Oathmaster]

Hello,

I have 2 main problems with your decklist.

First, Rift bolt too slow? Any mono red burn deck should be running 4 x rift bolts maindeck. That is now one of the staples to any burn deck. You generally always play this card with suspend. Sure you can wait a turn because it is not like your going to kill on turn one or turn two so this becomes a lighting bolt. Late game you generally have very few cards in hand or lots of mana on board so hardcasting it would not be a problem. Not playing rift bolt is a mistake.

Second, Only running 2 flamebreak will probably mean death against goblins. Flamebreak extremely helps your matchup against goblins so should be a 4 of in the maindeck if you want to win game one. Since goblin is the most playing deck in the format, winning game one is important.

I do agree with you that magma jet is a staple in burn. I like the fork idea but I personally don't play it in my burn deck. I run price of progress on the side board because it is ineffective against solidarity and some other decks that I expect to see when I go to a legacy tournament.

Thanks
Justin

[janky.player]

Hi I'm new and just wanted to share my present list:

Burn

0cc-26
7 fetches
7 mountain
4 fireblast
8 baubles

1cc-18
4 Lightning bolt
4 Rift bolt
4 lava spike
4 chain lightning
2 spark elemental

2cc-12
4 magma jet
4 incinerate
4 flame rift

3cc-4
4 flamebreak

SB
4 price of progress
4 Red elemental blast
4 pyroblast
3 pillar

card choices:
bolts, spikes, chains, sparkys-1 mana 3 damage seems good.
magma jet-1R 2 damage +brainstorm (almost)
incinerate-no more 1 drops so we move onto two drops
flame rift-1R 4 damage.
flame break- wrath against goblins? okay.
14 land- I dont need any more
PoP-ummm either 1R 0 damage or 1R 6-8 damage
8 rebs- solidarity, thresh, fish.
pillar-combo

well thanks for reading.

[Dr. Math]

@Oathmaster - Thanks for the comments.

Regarding Rift Bolt - I will stand behind my statements about Rift Bolt, with some clarifications. Rift Bolt is another spell that I would never want to hard cast (I think we can all agree that a 3-mana sorcery that deals 3 damage is unplayable in burn). On turns 1-4, I can suspend it and it will behave much like any of the 1-mana-for-3-damage spells in the deck. On turn 5, though, I should be winning with whatever I am casting so waiting a turn for Rift Bolt to unsuspend it much worse than any other 1cc spell in the deck. To me, a staple is a card that I want to (and can) cast any time I see it. Rift Bolt doesn't fall into that category (in my opinion) since I don't want to see it after turn 4 when a ton of spells not in the deck would be better. I will continue to test it, but I hope a different spell will prove to be more consistent and better. If I'm missing something or you disagree, please explain.

About Flamebreak - I think if you look at my list again, you'll see that I do run 3 Flamebreak. With 8 Baubles, my testing has shown that 3 gives me enough of a chance to see 1 in time before Goblins runs away (remember - most of the rest of the deck can be aimed at certain critters to buy time).

@janky.player - How ofter do you reach 3 Mountains to cast Flamebreak?

Dr. Math

[outsideangel]

@Oathmaster - Thanks for the comments.

Regarding Rift Bolt - I will stand behind my statements about Rift Bolt, with some clarifications. Rift Bolt is another spell that I would never want to hard cast (I think we can all agree that a 3-mana sorcery that deals 3 damage is unplayable in burn). On turns 1-4, I can suspend it and it will behave much like any of the 1-mana-for-3-damage spells in the deck. On turn 5, though, I should be winning with whatever I am casting so waiting a turn for Rift Bolt to unsuspend it much worse than any other 1cc spell in the deck. To me, a staple is a card that I want to (and can) cast any time I see it. Rift Bolt doesn't fall into that category (in my opinion) since I don't want to see it after turn 4 when a ton of spells not in the deck would be better. I will continue to test it, but I hope a different spell will prove to be more consistent and better. If I'm missing something or you disagree, please explain.

About Flamebreak - I think if you look at my list again, you'll see that I do run 3 Flamebreak. With 8 Baubles, my testing has shown that 3 gives me enough of a chance to see 1 in time before Goblins runs away (remember - most of the rest of the deck can be aimed at certain critters to buy time).

@janky.player - How ofter do you reach 3 Mountains to cast Flamebreak?

Dr. Math


Your reasoning behind Rift Bolt is flawed: suspending Rift Bolt slows you down just as much as using baubles. If you're willing to take the slow-down that the Baubles bring, then you should be able to deal with Rift Bolt. Additionally, if you do topdeck Riftbolt after turn 4-ish, you can hardcast it. It's a 3-for-3, but often, in the later turns, you will have nothing else to cast, so you're not really losing anything by tapping down the two mountains you would have otherwise just left alone.

EDIT: Regarding maindeck Pyrostatic Pillar- It's crap against Goblins, but some good against Thresh and combo. If someone were to run Pillar MD, I'd probably run some number of Cave-Ins (probably 2) to compensate for the hurt in the Goblins matchup.

EDIT 2: If you cast Skullscorch against an opponent with an empty hand, or 1 card in hand, what happens? Can they choose to discard, despite not having 2 cards in hand, or are they forced to take the damage?

[kicks_422]

They can choose to discard, even without 2 cards in hand. It would work just as you would Hymn an opponent with no cards in hand.

[Dr. Math]

@outsideangel - I don't see how Baubles slow you down at all, especially in the way that Rift Bolt does. Look at this example -

Hand - Lightning Bolt, Skullscorch, Mishra's Bauble or Rift Bolt, Mountain, Bloodstained Mire, Lava Spike, Flamebreak.

Turn 1, Drop the Mire, Sac to put Mountain into play, Cast & Crack Bauble, Cast Lava Spike, Opponent's Upkeep Draw a Card [Flame Rift]. Net Outcome - 5 cards in hand, 51 cards in library, opponent at 17 life, I'm at 19 life.

Turn 2, Draw a Card [Mountain], Play Mountain, Cast Flame Rift. Net Outcome - 4 cards in hand, 50 cards in library, opponent at 13 life, I'm at 15 life.

Turn 3, Draw a Card [Urza's Bauble], Play Mountain, cast Flamebreak (say it's relevant), cast Urza's Bauble. Opponent's Upkeep Draw a Card [Fireblast]. Net Outcome - 3 cards in hand (Skullscorch, Fireblast, Lightning Bolt), 48 cards in library, opponent at 10 life, I'm at 12 life.

Turn 4, Draw a Card [Incinerate], cast Incinerate, cast Lightning Bolt, Sac 2 Mountains & cast Fireblast. Net Outcome - 1 card in hand (Skullscorch - sucks when goldfishing), 47 cards in library, Opponent has lost the game.

Now replace the Baubles with Rift Bolts.

Turn 1, Drop the Mire, Sac to put Mountain into play, Suspend Rift Bolt. Net Outcome - 5 cards in hand, 52 cards in library, opponent at 20 life, I'm at 19 life.

Turn 2, Cast Rift Bolt, Draw a Card [Flame Rift], Play Mountain, Cast Flame Rift. Net Outcome - 4 cards in hand, 51 cards in library, opponent at 13 life, I'm at 15 life.

Turn 3, Draw [Mountain], Play Mountain, Cast Flamebreak (say it's relevant). Net Outcome - 3 cards in hand (Skullscorch, Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike), 50 cards in library, opponent at 10 life, I'm at 12 life.

Turn 4, Draw [Rift Bolt], Cast Lightning Bolt, Cast Lava Spike, Suspend Rift Bolt. Net Outcome - 1 card in hand (Skullscorch), 49 cards in library, opponent at 4 life, I'm at 12 life.

This example highlights my point exactly. I used 2 Rift Bolts to highlight both of my points about it from my previous post. Rift Bolt can be replaced by ANY other 1cc 3 damage spell early since it is the effeciency of the spells that inherently limits the burn strategy, but the tempo loss by Suspending it later in the game is extremely bad and a 3 damage for 3 mana sorcery is UNPLAYABLE in burn (outside of Flamebreak which clearly has a more useful effect) since there are numerous cards at 2cc which are strictly better (Volcanic Hammer anyone?). I'm not saying Rift Bolt is unplayable. I'm saying it is not a staple and is probably not an optimuum spell for this deck.

Now, look at how the Baubles performed. They definitely did not slow the deck down. I saw 2 more cards in 4 turns and it never stopped me from being able to cast other spells.

Regarding Skullscorch - Yes, your opponent can choose to discard an empty hand and avoid the damage. This, as I pointed out in my original post, makes it a poor late game card (not many decks empty their hand turn 1 or 2 in the format unless I'm missing something). Skullscorch shines as a turn 2 one-sided Flame Rift or Hymn to Tourach, though.

Please let me know what you guys think,

Dr. Math

[Iranon]

If you cast Skullscorch on an opponent with an empty hand, nothing happens (unless they want to get hurt for some reason) which means this is a very bad card.

Giving your opponent a choice is rarely a good thing either - Burn can easily be put on a clock as it runs out of gas (a single Hymn can slow you down by several rounds). If that happens, an opponent will happily discard as they beat down.
Browbeat is questionable, and that reads 'a lot of pain now or even more pain later' so it entails much elss of a choice.

[Tao]

You can't compare Browbeat (good) to Skullscorch (bad).

If the opponent chooses the no damage from Browbeat you will trade speed fpr more damage. You will be slowed down by 1 turn, but draw an average of 6 points of damage.

If your opponent chooses to take no damage from Skullscorch -what a good opponent should nearly always do - you deal 0 damage now and 0 addional damage the next turn. The Hymn to Tourach effect is not very effective because unlike in Sui/Deadguy/Pox it is not supported by other Ressource Denial.

___

Rift Bolt is good in Burn. It is a staple 4-of. You can always create scenarios where you draw the Rift Bolt in the deciding turn and will be 1 Mana short of winning. But taking risks is a part of Magic. Usually that won't happen.

___

To the Bauble version: I think it is not needed to play Baubles. I would rather play PoP and/or Flamebreak main.

[dr4g0n]

You can't compare Browbeat (good) to Skullscorch (bad).

If the opponent chooses the no damage from Browbeat you will trade speed fpr more damage. You will be slowed down by 1 turn, but draw an average of 6 points of damage.

If your opponent chooses to take no damage from Skullscorch -what a good opponent should nearly always do - you deal 0 damage now and 0 addional damage the next turn. The Hymn to Tourach effect is not very effective because unlike in Sui/Deadguy/Pox it is not supported by other Ressource Denial.

___

Rift Bolt is good in Burn. It is a staple 4-of. You can always create scenarios where you draw the Rift Bolt in the deciding turn and will be 1 Mana short of winning. But taking risks is a part of Magic. Usually that won't happen.

___

To the Bauble version: I think it is not needed to play Baubles. I would rather play PoP and/or Flamebreak main.

Firstly, Browbeat is a little too slow when you need to race decks (eg. vs. affinity or goblins), however it can give you the edge late game. Agianst fast decks, it can be sided out for Flame Break or Pyrostatic Pillar.

Next, Baubles give free card draw and also give you a hint as to how to play your next few turns.

Also, I have seen a new card being played in a burn deck (Thunderbolt). I was wondering if it was up to scratch if it was to be run main deck.

[outsideangel]

Drawing a sorcery off of a Bauble has the same time delay as suspending a Rift Bolt; the only difference is when you pay the mana.

Honestly, the only reason I could justify Urza's Baubles are if you want to pack your deck with absolutely as mana 3-damage-for-1-mana spells as possible. The argument for Mishra's Baubles are that, when combined with fetchlands, they can give you minor card parity by allowing you to look at the top card and decide to shuffle it away or not. But that's balanced out by the life loss from the fetchlands.

To be quite blunt, I simply don't believe the "deck thinning" of Baubles is at all worth it. It's comparable to the "deck thinning" of fetchlands, and anyone who's seen the numbers can tell you that unless your deck is drawing a signifigant number of cards (far more than Burn ever, ever will) the effect is negligible at best.

As for Thunderbolt, it's not appreciably better than any other 3-for-2 burn spell...in fact, I'd say it's definitely worse than Incinerate, at least. There is exactly 1 flying creature with a toughness greater than 3 but less than 5 in this format, Serendib Efreet, so it's secondary ability is pretty much useless, leaving you with a less-good Lava Spike as opposed to a less-good Lightning Bolt, if that makes any sense.

[Dr. Math]

Here's the thing, if we are being blunt. Burn has a 5 turn clock with turn 4 possible (turn 3 is IMPOSSIBLE without help from your opponent). Just look at the spells we have available (I said Bolt in place of ANY 1 mana for 3 damage)...


Turn 1 - Mountain, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 5 (6 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 17
Turn 2 - Mountain, Bolt, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 3 (4 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 11
Turn 3 - Bolt, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 2 (3 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 5 (out of free burn range)
Turn 4 - Bolt, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 1 (2 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 0

Calculate the odds of a Turn 4 win for a minute. All the playtesting in the world won't change the fact that it is much less than a 50% proposition. It's actually less than a 15% chance, just because of the 'good' spells we have to cast. Here's the problem - that's assuming NO interaction from our opponent. Goblins is attacking for the kill next turn, Solidarity will go off in response to our kill spell, and Threshold will inevitably Daze a Bolt to set us back - and those are just Tier I responses.

Turn 5 is much, much easier. It is in fact, >75%. You can even make a terrible list with cards you wouldn't want your little sister to use in burn and make this happen. It goes directly to the efficiency of the spells we have to play. But on Turn 5, Goblins has killed us, Solidarity has decked us, but we might still be in the game vs Threshold. [I'll just mention that at turn 6 your percentage goes up over 90% but if you play 6 turns vs a non-interactive opponent in this format, call the paramedics first and the judge second.]

This is WHY we have to run sub-optimal cards - to give us a fighting chance against the fastest decks in the format. Flamebreak, I think most will agree from what I've read here, is a terrible card. The mana-damage ratio is BAD and at 3cc it forces us to pack more land that what we really want to (making us less efficient) but we have to try and keep up with Aggressive Creature decks (you could play Pyroclasm which does 0 damage for 2 mana which I believe is strictly worse in this deck). Red has NO pure disruption (unless you want land destruction), so we are entirely on our own against combo - it is a pure race and we are neither as consistent nor as fast as either Iggy Pop or Solidarity.

This is what makes Baubles (and Fetches) worth it - they improve a poor Turn 4 win % (granted not a lot - but anything helps) and they increase the consistency of a Turn 5 win.

There are, unfortunately, a lot of 'It doesn't truly matter' card choices in burn (you'll actually see that nearly any 2 mana burn spell is better than nearly any 3 mana burn spell because it frees up your land slots). But that's because NONE of those spells change the fundamental turn of the deck.

I believe that's the challenge for us as players of the archetype - how can we change the fundamental turn from 5 to 4 (and then from 4 to 3) and challenge the best decks in the format. If we are to be content with turn 5, the list is essentially complete (we could argue over Shock and Firebolt as possible inclusions, but they both stink) and we can change to debates about which cards to use in the 'meta-slots' like Flamebreak or Pyrostatic Pillar or whatever or whatever (which no one will ever agree on since 'nobody here plays goblins' or 'nobody here plays solidarity').

I, for one, think that adding Baubles was a tremendous boost to the archetype - adding those 8 cards eliminated the need to run 8 under-performers. This improves the percentages of the deck (doesn't make a 50% Turn 4 win, but it's more consistent with them than without) and if you don't believe it - you clearly haven't tested it.

Dr. Math

[Taurelin]

turn 3 is IMPOSSIBLE without help from your opponent

Improbable, but not impossible, I'd like to note.

Turn 1 - Mountain, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 5 (6 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 17
Turn 2 - Mountain, Bolt, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 3 (4 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 11
Turn 3 - Mountain, Bolt, Fireblast + Fork
Cards left in Hand - 0 (1 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 0

This is what makes Burn indeed a combo-deck and is a major reason to run Fork.

[Kazadoom]

some things we should consider:

which are the most effective burn spells available? only mana/dmg ratio!!!

Best spells at 2cc in my opinion are:

Lighning helix

Flame Rift
4 dmg increases the odds for turn 3/4 kills as u can play a combination of 4x3dmg spells and 2x4dmg spells (Blast+Rift)
I must admit its shitty in the aggro matchup but therefore you can play Helix to kompensate that!

Lighning helix:
3dmg 3 life ain't bad it my buy you another turn just like flamebreak can do and but offers a difference of 6 life in your favour which is incredible for a 2cc spell
(you can say somethin along the line: Deal 3 dmg draw another card gain another land drop)
It opens you up for wasteland but you can Fireblast in response and hope for a good topdeck!

Maybe you could add some calculations to prove your point?
Furthermore adding baubes => no Pyroclastic pillar!
which is just so incredible against kombo.

[Drkdstryer]

Improbable, but not impossible, I'd like to note.

Turn 1 - Mountain, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 5 (6 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 17
Turn 2 - Mountain, Bolt, Bolt
Cards left in Hand - 3 (4 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 11
Turn 3 - Mountain, Bolt, Fireblast + Fork
Cards left in Hand - 0 (1 on draw)
Opponent's Life - 0

This is what makes Burn indeed a combo-deck and is a major reason to run Fork.

That reasoning is kinda flawed. What burn wants is as many 3 for 1 mana as possible (hence why Rift Bolt is a godsend). The only way that Burn kills on turn 3 is through Price of Progress (not dependable at all) or with Fireblast. There's no way that I can come up with that uses Fork and NOT Fireblast to kill on turn 3. Therefore, Fireblast is the combo piece that is really important.

Example:
Turn 1: Suspend Rift Bolt
Turn 2: Bolt goes off, some combination of two 3 for 1's (Two Chain Lightnings, for example) (9 Damage)
Turn 3: Lightning Bolt, Flame Rift, Fireblast for 20 damage.

Cards are all interchangeable. The point is, Fork is not at all essential to the turn 3 kill - Fireblast IS. I'm still not decided on Fork in the main (Forking FoF is insane, and one of the funnest things you can do against a blue mage) but it's not all all irreplaceable. The 3 for 1's (including Rift Bolt) and Fireblast are the only TRULY irreplaceable parts of the deck. I would rather run all 3 for 1's over even Magma Jet.

[Dr. Math]

@ Taurelin07 - Thanks for pointing out my error :smile: . It appears that the Turn 3 win is possible if you a) play Fork+Fire Rift and b) draw 9 semi-specific cards or 9 semi-specific cards + any other card on the draw. Using my decklist, there is a 0.033% chance of drawing it perfectly for a turn 3 win (33 times in 100,000 hands) which increases by 30x to 1.187% on the draw. If you play 4 Rift Bolts, the 4th Fireblast and increase the Fork/Flame Rift count to 4 each, you can get up to a 0.328% shot on the play and 11.870% on the draw [This even factors in that you cannot draw the Rift Bolt last]. Drawing the extra card makes that much of a difference and it doesn't even matter what you draw as the 10th card! This still means that you will only have a chance (your opponent just has to sit there - lots of those decks around :wink:) to win Turn 3 approximately every other match (if you choose to DRAW first each and every game). I also agree that drawing the similarities to combo is very good for a burn deck. The inherent problem is that though we have a lot of redundancy (any 7 cards can provide the kill), we have horrible effeciency (since it still takes 7 cards).

@ Kazadoom - I don't think you can entirely evaluate spells just based on damage/mana ratio. Once you move from the 1cc spells where 3/1 is the standard, you get into the need for utility (i.e. Incinerate > Volcanic Hammer > Flame Jet in most situations) and the discussion wanes philosophical (maybe not over Incinerate). We don't lack access to the spells, we lack the ability to ensure that we have the steam to draw and cast enough of those spells - I think that's the issue we need to be addressing. Let me know specifically what calculations you want to see (I don't want to turn the board into a 5 page math lecture if I don't have too).

Dr. Math

[outsideangel]

I'll just come outright and say that I don't believe Burn should be aiming for a turn 4 kill at this point. It's simply too unreliable to be our game plan. Now, this might change when/if Wizards prints another couple 3-for-1s or 4-for-2s, but as it is, the chances of getting that turn 4 kill aren't good, and as was noted previously, if we go "all in" for turn 4 and whiff, Goblins and Solidarity just kill us.

This is why I feel we need to start looking at other ways of playing the deck. Instead of trying in vain to make the turn 4 kill reliable, we should be thinking up methods of protecting ourselves while going for the turn 5 (or even turn 6) kill. This means we need to a) be able to slow down Goblins' godly hands enough to finish them off, b) ensure that we don't run out of gas against Thresh if 1-3 of our burn spells get countered, and c) find a way to mess up Solidarity's gameplan.

C might be unfeasible, but we've already started with A and B by including cards like Flamebreak/Cave-In, Magma Jet, and Barbarian Ring. Other cards that come to my mind are Mog Fanatic and Keldon Marauders.

[Kazadoom]

I dont mind doing some math and I'll help u if needed i'm very curious about the effeciency of bauble burn,
that's why i asked for calculations.

The point I wanted you to see is that there should be a combination
of the best burn spells + the best deck manipulation balanced to the point,
where it is most efficient.

In my opinion there are just so many ways to play Burn, i personally dont go the rote of brute force.
I run Rw burn trying to optimize my odds against aggro (helix) in addition to the 4 flambreaks,
which became staples for me since i play burn (which is over a year now).
Although there are hardly any goblins around in my meta they randomly win games by themselves
... but drawing more than 2 can be really bad.

I just looked up Keldon marauders and asked myself how i overlooked them when I drafted Planar chaos!
they seam to be a good replacement for Fanatic!
dealing at least 2 dmg for 2 mana with the ability to block treshed geese&bears.
And attacking for 3 if ther's no defence
=> 5dmg for 2 mana
or
=> 2dmg for 2 mana + Blocking 1-2 turns
or
=> 2dmg +3life when stp'ed

Doesnt seem that bad it needs testing. On the topdeck he's as bad as fanatic but turn 2 he seems to be even better.



0cc
4xFireblasts
1cc
4xLightning Bolt
4xChain Lightning
4xLava Spike
4xRift Bolt
2xEarthquake
2cc
4xIncinerate
4xMagma Jet
4xLightning helix
4xKeldorn Marauders [in place of Pyroclastic Pillar]
3cc
3xFlamebreak
Lands
2x4xFetches
2xPlateau
1xBarbarian Ring
8xMountain



1xFlamebreak ---aggro hate
2xEarthquake ---aggro hate
3xJötun Grunt ---aggro kombo ***** hate
1xGaeas Blessing ---Solidarity, Springtide hate in addition to grunt
4xPrice of Progress ---Nonbasic hate
4xDisenchant --- just to be sure ... didnt need them in a while
up to the meta but I'm open for any good hoser


This build would also be able to include baubles if the prove themselves worth it (just ordered a playset of urza's Baubles)
I gonna play the above list in our weekly tournament and if there's interest I can post a short report
Kazadoom

PS: never said that utility is bad just wanted to point out that 2 incredible spells are not even considered here,
although we are talking about speed! Fork&Rift allow a 6card kill that's the point of adding them to the mix!

[Iranon]

Any decent Burn deck has a fair chance of killing turn 4, with some shot at killing turn 3 altough that will be the exception. The latter is a strong reason why Flame Rift and Fork are worthy of consideration despite their questionable quality.

The reliability of killing by turn 4 can only be increased so far. While adding Baubles is better than playing filler (and 3-for-2s without significant side benefits are filler in my book), there are a lot of cards available which lend Burn a tactical edge that matters more than a slightly faster goldfish. Of course you could play Baubles and a decent amount of non-standard burn spells but that seems counter-intuitive.

My personal favourite in an open metagame is Pulse of the Forge. It allows you to use your regular burn spells as a delaying tactic without crippling yourself, it counteracts life gain, it helps maintaining a clock after discard/counters, it forces your opponent to overextend into a Flamebreak or risk EoT PotF, PotF, Fireblast kills, it keeps Tendrils players from winning games they shouldn't...
whatever the problem with Burn is, a possible answer is Pulse of the Forge. Not usually the best one, but a very versatile one that doesn't require much of a sacrifice either. 4 damage for 3 isn't amazing but it's a lot better for your goldfish than what some people play to address the various problems. The synergy with Flame Rift and Rift bolt is also nothing to be sneezed at.

It goes a long way towards covering outsideangel's wishes a) and b). For c) we can depend on the board. Since maindeck Pyrostatic Pillar was mentioned... that would address the matches against most noncreature decks effectively, and the card should work well with Pulse as well. In order to tip the match against creature decks even further in our favour, Keldon Marauders definitely look interesting - any card that deals its damage over time makes it better.

[Bane of the Living]

Has Sulfuric Vortex gone completely out of favor? It seems like your best card against the mid range white decks that play angels and such. Its also nice to burn your opponent down to 10-8 and lay it with your hand empty. Its reach that makes your opponent have to race you.

[Dr. Math]

@bane_of_the_living - My opinion is that Sulfuric Vortex is extremely slow and too narrow to be maindecked (which upsets me since it is one of my favorite cards). It is best when you are playing against a dedicated life gain deck (obviously), otherwise, a spell like Flames of the Blood Hand could be just as good versus random life gain effects. Plus any deck playing life gain will have access to Disenchant which is bad for the Vortex.

@idea of burn as a long game (turn 5) - Why? That's my biggest question. We have to cast 6-7 spells aimed at our opponent to win, none of which can be countered or expect them to do damage to themselves (not necessarily a bad assumption in the format). We've gone over several examples that show if you do this turn 3 you have 0-1 cards left (a perfect draw). So it will follow that you can do it turn 4 and have 1-2 'dead' cards or turn 5 and draw 2-3 extras (assuming you draw only 3 land to play). So, here's my little thought experiment on the subject...

Against aggro, I think we can definitely play this type of a game (since we are probably the control deck) and win. Flamebreak generates amazing card advantage since it will likely cash in as at least a 3/1 when cast vs most aggro decks, in fact, we might be able to get away with playing Pyroclasm vs most aggro decks to the same advantage (which could offer us more flexibility with a lower curve). But we already have a pretty good game vs aggro and since most of our spells can be cast at their really 'disruptive' critters, we should be ok with the speed burn plan.

Against straight control, we have no way of generating card advantage (we have no draw). This forces us to rely on any virtual card advantage we could possibly generate (i.e. no creatures to Plow, no abilities to Needle, etc. etc.) and we would still end up relying on a top-deck for the win (since they only need to counter a couple of spells early or gain a little life or have us draw a couple more land to run out of cards/gas). What would be the advantage of trying to outlast control? We really have to assume the aggressive role in this match-up and I would think speed is our greatest ally in accomplishing that. If we race, we force them to use counters instead of draw and we can take advantage of any virtual card advantage (as the game goes on, this effect lessens)

Against aggro-control, we would be in even more trouble. With no card advantage, we are again behind the 8-ball on the control front. And it is compounded against a deck like Thresh since our card advantage source (Flamebreak) will only kill 2 of their creatures (assuming they play Mage) once they reach threshold (probably around turn 3). This leaves us top-decking versus an aggressive deck with 4/4s and 6/6s in later turns. Again, why wouldn't we just try and race them and assume the aggressive role?

Against combo, we have no disruption. With no guaranteed discard or counters, we are again left in a poor position to play against their clock which, I think, forces us back into a race. I'm unaware (I haven't read every thread) of any combo that doesn't use counters and card draw/search which means they will assume the control role and we are again the aggressor.

Please help me understand why it would be a good decision for us to try and play a 'long' game against any of these decks? Where is our advantage? I understand that you can play burn as a control deck which is what we do versus Goblins/Aggro. But why would we try against the rest of the field?

@Keldon Marauder - Another bad card for us to run in the maindeck. Our only way to generate card advantage versus most of the field is through virtual means (i.e. leaving them with dead cards). Why wouldn't an opponent destroy the Marauder and take the crappy Lava Dart (1R - do one damage to target opponent. Sac this creature - do one damage to target opponent)? Even Goblins would likely just block with a Fanatic or Matron. The only decks this will hit against is combo and you still won't do the 5th damage to them until turn 4, making it extremely slow. I could see it out of the sideboard for those match-ups, though.

@Kazadoom - Working on a legible presentation of the calculations of how advantageous Bauble Burn is over non-Bauble versions.

Dr. Math

[Lego]

I don't see why people are having any problem with Burn versus Solidarity. A normal Burn deck seems to goldfish about as fast as Solidarity, plus they play 4-8 fetches to help you out. Then post-board you bring in 4 x Pillar and 4 x Blast, and you're good to go. You should at the very least 50/50 them, and I think it's probably a bit better because of your board.

[Kazadoom]

Please help me understand why it would be a good decision for us to try and play a 'long' game against any of these decks? Where is our advantage? I understand that you can play burn as a control deck which is what we do versus Goblins/Aggro. But why would we try against the rest of the field?
Does major improve to some matchups (and many random decks) varify loosing ground against some other decks?
I think it depends on the meta, and Burn can be tweaked to fit any meta in my opinion.


Working on a legible presentation of the calculations of how advantageous Bauble Burn is over non-Bauble versions.

what programs do u use maybe i can assist u anyhow? Are u using binomical distributions or are u working with MWS? or something else?

No idea how you play burn but how do you usually finish the game?
I usually drag the game as long as possible waiting for the perfect chance and kill in response or with backup if I'm not under pressure.

The problem with bauble is mainly the sideboard plan that we all follow in form of Pyroclastic Pillar. Therefore weekening the Kombo matchup

[Drkdstryer]

I don't see why people are having any problem with Burn versus Solidarity. A normal Burn deck seems to goldfish about as fast as Solidarity, plus they play 4-8 fetches to help you out. Then post-board you bring in 4 x Pillar and 4 x Blast, and you're good to go. You should at the very least 50/50 them, and I think it's probably a bit better because of your board.

They control the stack, and they have Force and Remand. Remand is HUGE against Burn - we don't run enough lands to cast the 2cc spells twice, and Zeus help you if you get a Fireblast Remanded. Since Fireblast is typically a big part of a turn 4 kill, and indispensable to a turn 3, Remand is actually the nuts against Burn. Force is pretty good too - if I were Blue I'd far rather take 1 than 3 or 4. Pillar seems really good because they should be around 10 or 12 when they try to combo, but there's no Solidarity in Pittsburgh so I've never played the matchup.

[bigbear102]

The burn versus Solidarity matchup can go many different directions. It is possible to make the match extremely one-sided by boarding Sirocco. This along with Pillar make the match almost unwinnable for Solidarity. If you are a competent player though, you will have a good SB and not be playing Sirocco.

Game 1 is a pure and simple race to the finish line. You have to end the game as soon as possible, and may have to take the chance of walking into remand/Force with fireblast on turn 3. Your other game one option is playing your first 3-4 spells, getting them under 10 life, and then waiting. If you can wait for them to go off, you will sometimes be lucky enough to respond to a reset/turnabout when they have 0 mana floating.

Games 2-3 rely completely on your board. I assume most boards will include 4x Pillar and probably 3-6 Blasts. You take out any board sweepers/prices and then fanatics. Fanatics are bad in this matchup unless they come down turn 1, which is not likely enough to rely on.

Basically you want to make sure your pillar resolves before they can go off, if you are on the play, and you have 3 land, play it on turn 3 with blast protection. If on the draw you go ballz to the wall and play it turn 2 when it is less likely for them to go off in response. You do not want to play it after they hit 4 land, unless you can protect it, because odds are they will go off with it on the stack, and your only hope is to blast something to stop them.

Games 2-3 normally come down to you playing the control game. Getting an early Pillar is essential, and if you don't you almost have to have a turn 3/4 kill. I have seen Solidarity fizzle more times while playing burn than any other deck, because they must go off asap. If you don't get pillar online early, you are the aggresson, if you do, then hold some stuff back so you can kill them in response to wishing for a bounce spell. Making them play the maximum number of spells under pillar is crucial, make them respond before they find that answer.

@Drkstryder: I will let solidarity hymn and dart themselves all day long for R or 1R. Remand is a bit more of a problem, but we just have to be smart. We can play a lot of our spells in response to theirs, when they don't have the mana to Remand.

Against any blue control, MUC/Landstill, we should win every game 1, and unless they bring in chill, every game 2. It is so insanely easy of a MU. Just burn them early, and then wait. You have up to 7 cards in your hand, they also have up to 7. Yours cost anywhere from 0-2, theirs cost anywhere from 0-2. The odds are better for you though, because their 0 cost spell =2 cards in hand, ours =1. If you can get them below 10, then you can just wait for the right moment. The good thing about blue based control is that you have all the time in the world. Bring in pillars and you have an even better match, cuz then every relevent spell they cast hurts them, unless they hardcast force, at which point you play the other 3-4 spells in your hand while they are tapped out.

Against *non-blue control, you just goldfish them.

*non-blue control is defined as every non-blue deck in the format that wins after turn 3 on average, besides goblins. I know that excludes a lot of the field, but at a big tourney auto-winning against what is usually 40-60% is pretty good, and even then you have good/even matchups against tier 1.

If Keldon Marauders had vainishing 0 and haste it might be considered playable...maybe. You definately cannot replace Fanatic with it, unless you are in a non-goblins meta. Fanatic is there to trade with lackey early on. That is why it is played. Marauder doesn't do much after lackey connects and sends a siege-gang in. Marauder also is very conditional. If you don't connect with him he is a very bad magma jet, which is not a good thing in my book.

[Finn]

Bigbear, you have never faced a turn 3 or 4 Nullstone Gargoyle with haste have you? Welder Survival can do that consistently. And it will beat you every time because of that. OK, this is hardly a nail in the coffin of this deck with all those Welder Survival decks running around, but it is entirely an oversimplification to claim Burn goldfishes against any noncombo deck without counterspells. Loxodon Hierarch will kick your tail as well. And don't forget Duress and the like. Those things can create problems.

In short, the field is far too diverse to make such claims.

[Kazadoom]

Question how many answers do we have against a 1/1 Welder?^^

But as I'm running 3 Flamebreaks / 2 Earthquakes main i dont fear goblins that much.
Earthquake also is great to sweep early on if u dont get the 3rd land and later on you can bypass chalice/counterbalance&friends.

Marauders < J&#246;tun Grunt :D anyhow so i dont think they will replace them in my deck but I like to have a playset of them you never know what happens in the metagame :D

[Goblin Snowman]

Bigbear, you have never faced a turn 3 or 4 Nullstone Gargoyle with haste have you? Welder Survival can do that consistently. And it will beat you every time because of that. OK, this is hardly a nail in the coffin of this deck with all those Welder Survival decks running around, but it is entirely an oversimplification to claim Burn goldfishes against any noncombo deck without counterspells. Loxodon Hierarch will kick your tail as well. And don't forget Duress and the like. Those things can create problems.

In short, the field is far too diverse to make such claims.

And Chalice, Trinisphere, Jitte, LD, and all the other massive amounts of disruption lying around.

[Finn]

Question how many answers do we have against a 1/1 Welder?^^
Answer: Zero. It has haste.


Also. Between Lightning Helix and Jotun Grunt, is there a well-defined RW hybrid floating around anywhere?

[Lego]

Answer: Zero. It has haste.

It's true. Welder Survival is the best deck in the format because it's so ridiculously consistent. Man, I envy that deck.

[Finn]

Lego, you don't want to get into that discussion with me. You really don't.
But that's neither here nor there in this thread anyway.

With the large number of Chalices running around, I think I might actually endorse the w/r hybrid version these days. The virtual card advantage of yada yada is at an all-time low thanks to Solidarity concerns from just about every other deck. Perhaps Burn needs to abandon that strategy since pretty well STP and an occasional Diabolic Edict are the only creature-only removal spells you are likely to see. STP is actually not a bad card to use on your own guys in this matchup. And very few decks have Disenchant or the like in the main anymore. There just aren't that many cards being made dead these days by not having relevant permanents.

[Kazadoom]

Don't think that Rw is well defined but there are hardly any options you can play beside Helix and grunt if you are interested in my decklist just check some posts ago

[TheRock]

After doing some reading and putting some thoughts together, I decided to build a list just to see how it went. This is DEFINITELY not set-in-stone yet since there are still slots that could easily be changed (and I've been changing them quite a lot).

Still, as of right now, this is what I would probably use...eh, I think...:

17 Mountain

4 Urza’s Bauble
4 Mishra’s Bauble

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

4 Magma Jet
3 Incinerate
4 Pyrostatic Pillar

3 Cave-In
3 Fireblast

Sideboard:
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Shattering Spree
2 Flamebreak
2 Pyroclasm
1 Sirocco

(To take Tacosnape's idea, and yeah, I did forget about your disclaimer, sorry about that)
Average damage with Baubles: 99 (Pillar being set at 4 dmg) 99 / 60 = 1.633
Average without Baubles: 99 / 52 = 1.904
Average cost with Baubles: 40 / 60 = .6667

I've been switching the Shocks, Incinerates, the 17th Mountain, and a 4th Fireblast around quite a lot, and I have been testing Flame Rift, Spark Elemental, Keldon Marauders, Flamebreak...yeah, I think you get the picture.

Many of the choices have already been discussed here, and I won't waste your time discussing them again --- you have lives to live too. Thus, I will only point out a few things.

I actually hate many of the 2 and 3-drops that this deck runs because I find that by turn 4, I'm usually stuck with something in my hand that I need to play. I really like Shock, but the only reason I have 3 Incinerates is because Flame Rift blows against aggro (and Pillar is bad enough against them) and I actually need that extra point of damage. I find that 11 of them is enough, especially if my hand has many 3-for-1s in it instead. Another big plus is that I can win off of two lands because everything else costs so little.

Mass removal with damage is a necessary evil. However, I find that Cave-In is just as devastating to Goblins without requiring me to throw three mana out the door. With this card, you just pitch a card that you have no intention (or no ability if you don't have the mana) to play. If that doesn't come up, then you simply don't play it. Pillar is usually the nuts against matchups where Cave-In isn't that great anyway.

Thanks for reading this and please fire away --- the input matters.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

You playing 4 maindeck Pyrostatic Pillar!
Are there any problems with the 8 baubles?

[Kazadoom]

some questions:

have you considered playing Rw? to compensate the dmg Pillar deals to you?

And how did baubles+Pillar work our?
Why no fetches they have synergy with bauble

How much does the card pitched to cave in hurt?

and plz there are better options than shock :D

[TheRock]

You playing 4 maindeck Pyrostatic Pillar!
Are there any problems with the 8 baubles?

It can be a problem when I start topping Baubles, but otherwise, it really isn't a problem. There are some decks in this format that lose badly to Pillar, and against them, the two damage is usually nothing to worry about.

Against the matchups were Pillar is bad and you can't afford to take the damage, you obviously play the Baubles and leave Pillar in your hand or just discard it to Cave-In if you can.


have you considered playing Rw? to compensate the dmg Pillar deals to you?

And how did baubles+Pillar work our?
Why no fetches they have synergy with bauble

How much does the card pitched to cave in hurt?

and plz there are better options than shock :D

I have considered Rw; to be honest, the only thing I wasn't able to test was the manabase (namely how many duals). I could see it being a problem against Goblins or like Confidant (to add to the list of ways they can disrupt your gameplan), but probably not anywhere else. You probably know more than I do, so outside of cards like Helix, Grunt, and maybe Suppression Field, is there anything else that could be tested?

Again, Baubles and Pillar are fine together, especially considering that those Baubles are replacing some subpar cards. I didn't include the fetchlands in the list for the same reason that I didn't include Flame Rift --- the extra damage was nice, but taking four damage to do so wasn't that great. The deck thinning could be nice with 12 other spells that could benefit from it, but the damage doesn't make it seem all that worth it. I will still test the fetches some more; I could still change my mind about them.

Cave-In, however, is usually a mixed bag. I've won many games off of my opponent's fetches because I sometimes struggled to do 20 damage by turn 4. Sometimes, Cave-In is the card that I can't play --- or don't want to play. Many times, I pitch a near-useless Pillar or 2nd Fireblast to it. Sometimes, I have to pitch a card like Incinerate or Shock, but when I do pitch that card, I buy myself at least one more turn to make up for it.

Shock is 2 damage for 1. It's mathematically better than 3 damage for 2 (Incinerate), but if Helixes get added, then obviously a Shock is going to get cut. It still allows me to keep the amount of 2+ casting cost cards down right now, so I have to say that I'm happy drawing it.


On to the current decklist, the only thing I've really done is this:

-1 Mountain
+1 Fireblast

Since I've actually found too many lands in my testing. Even if the double Fireblast problem arises, there is still Cave-In and there's always Magma Jet.

[Kazadoom]

I always thought that the deck manipulation is a mail reason to play bauble (urzas+fetch=scry 1)
And for the white splash you can also play 1 Platue+7/8Fetches for siderboard cards (disenchant,Grunt) and if you feel that it's worth it just add another plateau and put 4Helix md you'll see that it can help alot in some matchups (and pikula is really nothing to worry about as you can sac them in response to waste or only fetch if you really need them for helix)

I think that 2 plateau+8fetches is the way to go but i must admit i never tried another setup.

[Giles]

17 Mountain

4 Urza’s Bauble
4 Mishra’s Bauble

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

4 Magma Jet
3 Incinerate
4 Pyrostatic Pillar

3 Cave-In
3 Fireblast

Sideboard:
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Shattering Spree
2 Flamebreak
2 Pyroclasm
1 Sirocco


Shocks are teh T3ch.
I really like your main deck. The 4 Pillars give it so much goodness. I think the SSG might be good in you deck for two reasons. First it allows the Turn 1 Pillar and food for the Cave-In.

[Drkdstryer]

Shock is 2 damage for 1. It's mathematically better than 3 damage for 2 (Incinerate), but if Helixes get added, then obviously a Shock is going to get cut. It still allows me to keep the amount of 2+ casting cost cards down right now, so I have to say that I'm happy drawing it.

No, Shock is mathematically more EFFICENT. Even though you lose 1/2 a mana using Incinerate, you DO MORE DAMAGE. And burn isn't all about efficency, it's about ending the game as soon as possible. Incinerate ends the game before Shock does.

[TheRock]

I always thought that the deck manipulation is a mail reason to play bauble (urzas+fetch=scry 1)
And for the white splash you can also play 1 Platue+7/8Fetches for siderboard cards (disenchant,Grunt) and if you feel that it's worth it just add another plateau and put 4Helix md you'll see that it can help alot in some matchups (and pikula is really nothing to worry about as you can sac them in response to waste or only fetch if you really need them for helix)

I think that 2 plateau+8fetches is the way to go but i must admit i never tried another setup.

I did consider the fetches some more, and I never liked them for their deck thinning because the life was more important. The effect with Mishra's Bauble, on the other hand, was always great (scry 1 like you've mentioned).

The fact remains that I still need cards to pitch to Cave-In (and extra lands just don't work), and I still have games where I just barely do enough damage to win (if I can get that last point or two that is).

So, in go the fetches. Yeah for Mishra's Bauble. Still not something I would tell a new player to spend $70+ for though.

I tested out Helix and it's awesome and it makes up for the life lost by the fetches. I tested out Disenchant and I like it, but Spree still gets rid of Chalices and Jittes really easily. I tested out Grunt and I don't like it. It does nothing to Tendrils/Iggy Pop and it's a lot harder to keep going against Threshold. Right now, I'm still skeptical about the Wasteland issue, and even with 8 fetches and 1 Plateau, I'm still not guaranteed to find W when I need it, so I'm going to stay mono-red for a bit longer at least.



Shocks are teh T3ch.
I really like your main deck. The 4 Pillars give it so much goodness. I think the SSG might be good in you deck for two reasons. First it allows the Turn 1 Pillar and food for the Cave-In.

Thanks! Pillar really is awesome and can win you games very quickly. :)

My only experience with SSG is in the form of cards like Petal and Chrome, but none of those cards were red and could block and those old builds didn't run Pillar. I'll test a few out and see how it goes.



No, Shock is mathematically more EFFICENT. Even though you lose 1/2 a mana using Incinerate, you DO MORE DAMAGE. And burn isn't all about efficency, it's about ending the game as soon as possible. Incinerate ends the game before Shock does.

That's the problem, IMHO, with the current builds. They runs cards that make you "lose mana", and in turn, prevent you from consistenty winning at a given time. Burn isn't a deck that gets the same number of lands every time and this isn't a deck that needs a damage-per-card ratio of 2.7. So why not create a feasible mix of damage and efficiency?

Tell me how hard it is to win on turn 4 with the older builds and with only two lands the whole time. With this build, it's not that hard at all. Cave-In is a major help.

[balla26]

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking around these threads for quite a while, but have not decided to register till now. I have been a burninator for quite a few years. So, here is my most recent decklist

16 Bolts
3 Chain of Plasma
4 Incinerate
4 Magma Jet
2 Browbeat
4 Flamebreak
4 Fireblast

4 Mogg Fanatic

19 Mountain

This is pretty much a basic decklist with the exceptions of 2 Browbeat instead of 3.

[Giles]

@TheRock: I have been running with a 2:2 spilt, and finding my self that I have been winning alot of games (or locking games) via Pillar. I really think that Pillar is the best card in burn.


Hello everyone,

I have been lurking around these threads for quite a while, but have not decided to register till now. I have been a burninator for quite a few years. So, here is my most recent decklist

16 Bolts
3 Chain of Plasma
4 Incinerate
4 Magma Jet
2 Browbeat
4 Flamebreak
4 Fireblast

4 Mogg Fanatic

19 Mountain

This is pretty much a basic decklist with the exceptions of 2 Browbeat instead of 3.

This deck is rubbish. There is nothing that makes you combo on turn 3 or anything that saves you if you draw a land.

[Lego]

This deck is rubbish. There is nothing that makes you combo on turn 3 or anything that saves you if you draw a land.

Turn 1 Mountain, Rift Bolt, Turn 2 Mountain, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Turn 3 Lava Spike, Lightning Bolt, Fireblast, assuming they've popped a fetch. Assuming they haven't, drop another land and play another Bolt.

Seriously, there's nothing wrong with that burn deck. You've got 4 Magma Jet, 4 Fireblast, and a compliment of Bolts. Along with Flamebreak, all the rest is basically whatever you want to play, and the choices balla has made are quite standard, and absolutely fine.

That said, I would include 4 Price of Progress between the main and side. Probably 3 main, 1 side, but I could see 2 main, 2 side. Either way, get them in there. They're really good :)

[Tao]

Seriously, there's nothing wrong with that burn deck. You've got 4 Magma Jet, 4 Fireblast, and a compliment of Bolts. Along with Flamebreak, all the rest is basically whatever you want to play, and the choices balla has made are quite standard, and absolutely fine.

qft



That said, I would include 4 Price of Progress between the main and side. Probably 3 main, 1 side, but I could see 2 main, 2 side. Either way, get them in there. They're really good :)

qft, too

Yes, play 2-4 PoP MD. They will only be dead in very few matchups but their average damage is probably the highest of all burn cards. 4 damage for 2 Mana is standard but in some games they can be just insane.

[Giles]

Seriously, there's nothing wrong with that burn deck. You've got 4 Magma Jet, 4 Fireblast, and a compliment of Bolts. Along with Flamebreak, all the rest is basically whatever you want to play, and the choices balla has made are quite standard, and absolutely fine.


Just because a burn deck has 4 Jet and 4 Fireblast and the 16 bolts, Does not mean that the deck is good.Those are just the staples.
The elegance of burn is not the staples, but rather the variation that is put on. with 19 lands you will get a dead draw if you see a land then lose all your tempo that you gain and must win next turn. Sure any burn deck and win T3 or T4, but it is the consistency (or lack there-of) of the deck that makes it good or bad.

[chmoddity]

What elegance? There is only so much you can get out of the Burn strategy since you basically have mana and bolts.

The particulars are not elegance, if done properly they are metagame slots.

[balla26]

Just because a burn deck has 4 Jet and 4 Fireblast and the 16 bolts, Does not mean that the deck is good.Those are just the staples.
The elegance of burn is not the staples, but rather the variation that is put on. with 19 lands you will get a dead draw if you see a land then lose all your tempo that you gain and must win next turn. Sure any burn deck and win T3 or T4, but it is the consistency (or lack there-of) of the deck that makes it good or bad.

and how is my deck not consistent? Do explain.

[Funlicker]

Hiya, I'm fairly new to legacy and had a couple questions about Burn.dec that I hope you guys can answer.

First off.. Burn seems to be pretty straightforward and relatively inexpensive, so with that in mind I believe it would be an okay deck to start out with, yes? I've played competetive extended lists so I also have all the fetch lands.

Secondly, I was wondering if there is any solid lists for Regular burn, and Bauble burn that I could start out with and tune to my metagame. With all the testing going around in this forum, I havent really seen any standard lists.

Finally, I have some specific card questions:
In regular burn:
should I use a plateau and Helixes over incinerate, considering my friends plays extended/casual and don't play wastelands.
should I cast magma jet asap since it fixes your draw? considering that it's impossible to win turn 3 casting magma jet.
Bauble burn:
I'm not sure if I really grasp the idea of the baubles here.. Are they just used for thinning the deck? Making the deck 52 cards instead of 60, which allows you to run less land, and making your draws more consistent? If that's the case, I want to pop my baubles asap?

Oh, and my metagame is kinda 50/50 half my freinds play aggro, the other half control. I'm not sure if that helps with anything lol......and thank you.

Ryan~

[rsaunder]

@Helix: I always played them in addition to incinerates, but the white splash was for far more then just them. Splashing white nets you disenchant and all sorts of other goodies like honorable passage to take out hate you otherwise really couldn't handle.

[Finn]

I, for one, am liking the RW versions more and more. I concede that it is not due to any experience with it, but it seems to have a lot of advantages that currently outweigh the disadvantages.

See Sockmonkey's list a page or two back for a pretty good version.

To answer you, Funlicker, baubles do what you say, but they replace some of the less useful burn spells like Volcanic Hammer and the like, making you more likely to draw the better ones. Also, if used properly, Mishra's bauble in particular can function like an Opt in conjunction with fetchlands.

[Giles]

and how is my deck not consistent? Do explain.

I did not say you deck is not consistent..... I said your dec is not consistent to get the T3 T4 win.

Why do you think your deck is good?

[Lego]

Volcanic Hammer and the like

When have you ever, ever seen Volcanic Hammer in a burn list? There's absolutely no justification whatsoever for ever running this card. Ever.


should I cast magma jet asap since it fixes your draw? considering that it's impossible to win turn 3 casting magma jet.

Assuming that you opponent doesn't pop two fetches, it's true that you can't win on Turn 3 with Magma Jet. But it's nearly impossible to win on Turn 3 once you even draw Magma Jet. Winning on Turn 3 on the play means you need to play Flame Rift or Fork, and use every card in your hand. Winning on Turn 3 on the draw means that you either need to use every card, or need to use all but one and play Flame Rift or Fork. That means that the only time you'll be able to draw Magma Jet and still win on Turn 3 is if you're on the draw, and playing Flame Rift or Fork.

That's all an incredibly complicated way of saying that if you've got Magma Jet in hand on Turn 2, you should play it. There's no way that you can have Magma Jet in hand on Turn 2, and already have the ability to win on Turn 3 (barring your opponent making you draw a card.) You'd need to topdeck the right card on Turn 3, so you might as well instead use Magma Jet to give you a better ability to fight through whatever your opponent throws at you. You're probably going to win on Turn 4 anyway.

That said, there's probably a situation where the rest of your hand is perfect and you absolutely need to win on Turn 3, or you only need a Bolt to win and you've already used a couple Rift Bolts. In cases like this, skip the Magma Jet, but this won't come up often.

This is all assuming that you've got Magma Jet and an otherwise perfect hand, which is highly unlikely. Usually you'll have Magma Jet and no chance of winning on turn 3 anyway, and you'll need more burn to win, so you should definitely use the Magma Jet to increase your chances of drawing into that burn.

[Funlicker]

@ Finn: I couldn't find sockmonkey's list but I'm almost positive I'm goin to run Rw bauble/regular burn. Also with regular burn I haven't been able to get a consistent 4th turn win with a possible 3rd turn win. More often then not (using mws) I get a 4-5th turn win :S. I'd really like to try bauble burn to see if it has a more consistent 4th turn, but I'm not sure what to run.

@ Lego Army Man: Yeah, I pretty much figured that magma jet was meant to be played asap to fix future draws unless you got some kinda god hand.

My list for regular burn right now is..

8 Fetch
10 Mountain
1 Plateau

16 Bolts (R for 3)
4 Sparks (Possible 3 for 1)
4 Jets (Fixes draw)
4 Helix (Better than Incinerate)
4 Flame Rift (1R for 4)
4 Fireblast (0cc for 4)
2 PoP (Probably avg. 1R for 4)
3 Flame Break (WoG)

It abuses all the most powerful burn and still doesn't get a consistent 4th turn win, suggestions?

[Lego]

My list for regular burn right now is..

8 Fetch
10 Mountain
1 Plateau

16 Bolts (R for 3)
4 Sparks (Possible 3 for 1)
4 Jets (Fixes draw)
4 Helix (Better than Incinerate)
4 Flame Rift (1R for 4)
4 Fireblast (0cc for 4)
2 PoP (Probably avg. 1R for 4)
3 Flame Break (WoG)

It abuses all the most powerful burn and still doesn't get a consistent 4th turn win, suggestions?

One problem is that you're using MWS. It is pretty much unanimously agreed that testing will never be perfect on MWS because the shuffler is horrible. You probably get a higher percentage of lands than you normally would.

If you read through the thread, you'll notice that people have mostly agreed that Flame Rift is bad. It allows Goblins (and other fast aggro decks) to race you, which is not what you want. You could try Incinerate, although I like Chain of Plasma much more.

Also, Sparky is pretty bad. The reasons have been discussed before. Mogg Fanatic is pretty good though.

[Funlicker]

So what is the best varient of burn, regular? or bauble?

and as for regular burn the basic idea is...

8fetch
10 mountain
1 plateau

16 bolts
4 fanatic/sparks
4 magma jet
4 helix
4 chain of plasma
4 fireblast
2 PoP
3 Flamebreak

When I test I find that quite often I'm 1-2 pts short of ending the game 1 turn quicker, while running flame rift. So without rift, i'll basically never be able to get a 3rd turn win and an even less consisten 4th turn. Sure it lets aggro race you, but I run 3 flamebreak and 4 helix, is that not enough? How good is fork? Should PoP maybe be a 3 of?

[balla26]

I did not say you deck is not consistent..... I said your dec is not consistent to get the T3 T4 win.

Why do you think your deck is good?

dude, you get the T3 win about 1 in 100 games so i dont see the problem with that. How is my deck not as consistent getting the T4 wins? 19 lands in enough to fuel all the burn in my hand. Normally, you need 3 lands by turn 3. Magma Jet helps out alot as it basically lets you rig your deck to a land or whatever is needed. Could ya post your decklist?

[Funlicker]

After playing around with baubles a bit I've gotten alot more 4th turn kills, so I think I'll stick with the baubles.

The list I play right now is:

10 mountain
8 Fetch
8 Bauble

0cc 4 Fireblast
1cc 16 Bolts
1cc 4 Fanatics
2cc 4 Magma Jets
2cc 3 PoP
3cc 3 Flamebreak

After realizing how good PoP is in my metagame I decided to up it to 3, I'm a little worried about 4 seeing that if I have to play it early it'll only go off for 2. I'd also really like to get rid of fanatics.. they just really don't help that 4th turn win consistency. I'd like to replace them with flame rifts or helix/plateau in order to increase my chance for a 4th turn win. Without them though does burn auto lose to goblins? What if goblins aren't really popular in my area? I was also wondering if anyone had ideas for a mono red sb or R/w sb more geared towards control/life gain.

[Funlicker]

Ehh, I replaced fanatics with flame rift. I like it better.

[Giles]

dude, you get the T3 win about 1 in 100 games so i dont see the problem with that. How is my deck not as consistent getting the T4 wins? 19 lands in enough to fuel all the burn in my hand. Normally, you need 3 lands by turn 3. Magma Jet helps out alot as it basically lets you rig your deck to a land or whatever is needed. Could ya post your decklist?

The problem is that you do not set up to win. If you are playing burn, everyone and their grandma is expecting you to play that list that you posted.

If you need 3 lands by Turn 3 You are not setting Burn up to win. Since Later in the game that will give you horrible dead draws. Also Running Browbeat is never going net cards, and only deals 5 damage. Thus creating wasted space in the deck.



Could ya post your decklist?

No. Since we are talking about your deck and not mine. I have spent alot of time perfecting it, and it works well for me. And I do not feel like tossing my hard work on the deck for you.

[Radley]

I don't know why you should reply like that. Balla26 only asked if you could post yours so if you don't like, you could just say no. Most of the people joined this forum to learn more and get some help for their deck.

Hmmm.. FORKing Fireblast is a good idea. So turn 1 land lightning bolt or chain lightning, turn 2, land then two lightning bolt or chain lightning, turn 3, land, lightning bolt float 2 mana then sac land for fireblast then cast fork to copy fireblast or just cast flame rift.. that's exactly 20 isnt it?

[xsockmonkeyx]

See Sockmonkey's list a page or two back for a pretty good version.


Hmmmm. I would like to see this list considering that I never posted it :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Finn]

Wow. Me too in that case. You pm'ed it to me, didn't you...OK, could you post it then?!

[outsideangel]

No. Since we are talking about your deck and not mine. I have spent alot of time perfecting it, and it works well for me. And I do not feel like tossing my hard work on the deck for you.

Dude, wow.... don't be a dick.

Anyway, is turn 4 fast enough for this format? Assuming we can reliably get the turn 4 win, what does that beat? Because it doesn't beat combo, and only beats Goblins sometimes. That doesn't seem good to me...

[xsockmonkeyx]

Wow. Me too in that case. You pm'ed it to me, didn't you...OK, could you post it then?!

I dont think it should be posted here because it doesnt necessarily fit the burn archetype. It is more like R/W Sligh but very burn heavy.

[Funlicker]

I'd like you to post your R/w sligh list too. Even though it's not neccesarily burn, it's apparently fairly good and I'd like to see if I can learn a thing or two from it.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Ok. Ill write it up and put it in N+D. It needs work.

[TheRock]

Anyway, is turn 4 fast enough for this format? Assuming we can reliably get the turn 4 win, what does that beat? Because it doesn't beat combo, and only beats Goblins sometimes. That doesn't seem good to me...

I don't about the specifics of your individual decks, and I'll stay out of that. However, depending on what you run, you may not feel the same way. Besides, you can't give some decks THAT much credit.

Solidarity goldfishes as fast as you, and with Pillar maindeck, it's get it off the table, counter it, or lose. They also have consistency problems (although Burn's problems are worse), so turn 4 is the right turn.

Goblins only wins on turn 3 if you're, like, bad. There's only one reason why you shouldn't be sending Lackey to the yard, and that's if you plan to Flamebreak/Cave-In all of them in one shot. Without Lackey, their clock is too slow.

Iggy-Pop or EPIC? Yeah, that's fast; no lies there. Threshold wins on turn 4? Maybe if the opponent fizzles right in front of them. Confidant on turn 4? Maybe when who know what freezes over.

I don't think that the killing turn/killing speed is something to worry about; an argument could be made about the absence of turn 3 kills though (which Goblins and Solidarity do have some of though). The consistency IS a real problem.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Bam! (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=112366#post112366)

[balla26]

Dude, wow.... don't be a dick.

haha QFFT

10 bucks that Giles doesnt even decent list

Capitalization and punctuation are mandatory on these boards. Use them. Also, this post is inflammatory and spam. Warned. Pull it together. - Zilla

[Giles]

haha QFFT

10 bucks that Giles doesnt even decent list

First off, WTF? That sentance does not make any sence what-so-ever.

Secondly, I am the only person that is telling you the truth. With 19 lands and 5-6 3 drops you are asking for having terrible top-decks. The math of Burn, if we were using your list, would say that every burn spell is the same. (Thus stating that Lava Dart = Mogg F. or Rift Bolt = Volcanic Hammer) Since you have not given a depenace on a card, that you can bait or do some random wins.

A straghtfoward burn list gives you no edge against your opponet. My deck list is to grant and advantages and give your opponet headackes. I do not want to give my decklist out because alot of people from my metagame would see the list.

So before balla26 and outsideangel suck each others dicks, because they have the 1337 Burn List. The sad truth of the matter is they are wrong.

Warned for idiocy. Play nice or you'll be removed. If you're not open to discussion of your decklist, don't bother posting. - Zilla

[Lego]

No. Since we are talking about your deck and not mine. I have spent alot of time perfecting it, and it works well for me. And I do not feel like tossing my hard work on the deck for you.

What's the point in even posting on these forums then?


Anyway, is turn 4 fast enough for this format? Assuming we can reliably get the turn 4 win, what does that beat? Because it doesn't beat combo, and only beats Goblins sometimes. That doesn't seem good to me...

Versus Solidarity, your goldfish is about the same as theirs, and you bring in some good stuff out of the board. Versus Goblins, you kill their Lackey, and you've got Flamebreak to clean up. Versus fast combo you lose (okay, not exactly true, because Pyrostatic Pillar will still win you games). In a lot of metagames, it's actually a very underrated deck.

[bigbear102]

Ok, having quite a bit of experience with the deck, you don't actually have to stop Lackey turn 1. If you've got gas in your hand you don't want to waste it on creatures. This is especially true if you have Flamebreak, but can work without it too.

[raudo]

Any experiences which one is better, Cave-in or Flamebreak? Cave-in have some synergy with Price of Progress too.

[Rastadon]

Flamebreak, by a long shot. I don't want to ditch my burn spells. I like them. They win me the game. Why limit yourself like that?

What synergy does Price of Progress have with Cave in?

[Radley]

Flamebreak, by a long shot. I don't want to ditch my burn spells. I like them. They win me the game. Why limit yourself like that?

What synergy does Price of Progress have with Cave in?

I Guess he means you can remove from the game price of progress if your opponent doesnt have any nonbasic lands which is not likely to happen. Cave-in is also great for bluffing(tapped out mana then if your opponent went [cast creature draw a card or effects like that] combo, you can surprise them with a cave-in. Casting when tapped out is a surprise, and surprises are great.

[balla26]

I Guess he means you can remove from the game price of progress if your opponent doesnt have any nonbasic lands which is not likely to happen. Cave-in is also great for bluffing(tapped out mana then if your opponent went [cast creature draw a card or effects like that] combo, you can surprise them with a cave-in. Casting when tapped out is a surprise, and surprises are great.

well Cave-in isn't good for bluffing because no one expects a burn player to have Cave-in.

Flamebreak. All the way. Does 3 damage to the opponent and kills all the creatures on the board.

[TheRock]

Flamebreak doesn't give Burn any chance of winning consistently within a time frame. Cave-In can, but it's not perfect by any means.

I'm going to have to go with Cave-In until somebody wins with a Flamebreak-based Burn deck.

[Taurelin]

I'm going to have to go with Cave-In until somebody wins with a Flamebreak-based Burn deck.

Please do.

http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=6797

1st Place out of 48 in one of Germany's most relevant monthly Legacy Tourneys.

[balla26]

Please do.

http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=6797

1st Place out of 48 in one of Germany's most relevant monthly Legacy Tourneys.

and that deck isn't even that well tuned. Plus the sideboards a mess.

[raudo]

Please do.

http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=6797

1st Place out of 48 in one of Germany's most relevant monthly Legacy Tourneys.

And the another winner runs 3 cave-ins. :wink:
http://www.germagic.de/dc/list.php?type=Burn&format=Legacy

Personally I switched to cave-in because it helps with manabase and have some synergy with fireblast and PoP. 3R is always a bit problematic.

[Taurelin]

And the another winner runs 3 cave-ins. :wink:
http://www.germagic.de/dc/list.php?type=Burn&format=Legacy


Yeah, and 3x Shock, 3x Lava Spike, Gaea's Blessing SB (which is even worse than Bottle Gnomes). :laugh:

[Tao]

The "D&#252;lmen" list (Cave-IN, 3 Shock, Gamble etc.) is a piece of crap. We discussed it in a German Forum and he played the same deck the whole year. And in this one tourney he scored Turn 3 kills (without drawig his bad cards) in nearly every round and people didn't draw their SB cards. Furthermore the "D&#252;lmen" tourney is smaller than Iserlohn. There are worse players with worse decklists so the IS list (Flamebreak) is much more relevant.

To the Cave-In discussion: Cave-In is BAD. Spending 2 cards for 2 damage is BAD. Wow, you gain Mana. But what will you do with it? You don't have cards in your hand anymore.

[raudo]

It depends how you look it: e.g. 2 damage for 0 mana against 3 damage for 3 mana. The reason that any one of these cards even exists in this topic is aggressive creature based meta. Otherwise you could replace flamebreak with some card like thunderbolt or chain of plasma.

And what to do with spare mana? Isn't it obvious? With cave-in you can run less mana in your deck and hit better cards than lands.

[Iranon]

Even when you don't have any real 3-cost spells (Rfit Bolt hardly counts) you don't want to go too low on land; to retain a chance of killing turn 3 and to kill semi-reliably turn 4, you need to make your first 3 land drops unless your opponent helps you.

After turn 3, hand cards are likely to be a more critical resource than mana. Since you give up a perfectly good business spell for Cave-In, it isn't any more beneficial for a decent goldfish, quite the contrary.

The main advantage is that you can play it at any time... but how often do you want a sweeper before turn 3? Against the patented Goblin Nutz Draw when going second, and that's about it. Against some of the broken Affinity openings you might want a sweeper, but 2 to everything is not going to be enough... and if you expend a third business spell, your opponent is likely to recover before you do.

The card is too narrow in its practical applications. It's 'best' in dire emergencies and there it usually spells 'lose later instead of now'. Unless all you ever see is little green red men (especially Empty the Warrens cheese) or bizarre Stompy variants, I wouldn't touch it with a pointy stick.

[TheRock]

I wanted to post something earlier, but ran out of time and decided to wait. Sorry about that.


Even when you don't have any real 3-cost spells (Rfit Bolt hardly counts) you don't want to go too low on land; to retain a chance of killing turn 3 and to kill semi-reliably turn 4, you need to make your first 3 land drops unless your opponent helps you.

That's a problem, especially since most Burn decks are running 18 lands. So you're telling me that you're happy with a one-land hand, which on the play, you're going to get about 31% of the time? In addition, you're guaranteed to get exactly three lands in 9 cards (aka on the play) about 30% of the time with Baubles (no Jet manip or Bauble/fetch manip though) and 27.7% on the draw.

While those numbers will obviously be a bit higher, that's asking a lot. With four lands, you could be in trouble too. And sadly, that doesn't even begin to answer what happens when you draw two Flamebreaks and need to do that three damage...

With Cave-In, you can win on TWO LANDS. Why? Because you'll have eight red cards and Cave-In costs nothing. You have their fetchlands to help you. May I remind you, while the use of fetches in Goblins is another topic, Cave-In stops them so cold that you will have more turns.

I like Flamebreak, but it doesn't work. With Cave-In, you can simply draw more cards to use and you work off of less mana.



After turn 3, hand cards are likely to be a more critical resource than mana. Since you give up a perfectly good business spell for Cave-In, it isn't any more beneficial for a decent goldfish, quite the contrary.

The main advantage is that you can play it at any time... but how often do you want a sweeper before turn 3? Against the patented Goblin Nutz Draw when going second, and that's about it. Against some of the broken Affinity openings you might want a sweeper, but 2 to everything is not going to be enough... and if you expend a third business spell, your opponent is likely to recover before you do.

The problem is that many times, you will have a completely dead business spell. You don't have to play Cave-In, and you know, decks have 75 cards, not 60.

Affinity is another matter. I haven't really tested any Burn deck against it whatsoever; sorry, I just don't have the time. To be frank and quite honest, time is something I wish I had more of right now.


My real problem wasn't winning turn 4 on the draw. It was winning turn 4 on the play - I had to get 10 cards to do 20 damage, and with Cave-In, that's not that easy. But then again, when Cave-In was bad, Pillar was usually spectacular.

Seriously, give my list a spin at least and just see how it goes.

[Iranon]

Right. I thought we were talking about a more general context. Your list explains your fondness for the card - naturally it becomes a lot more attractive if you maindeck dubious cards (as in hit-or-miss, not necessarily in the sense of bad choices).

I'm familiar with hedging my bets with cards that shine against different types of decks; I merely hadn't been aware we were assuming maindecked Pillars for the comparison. I've tried something similar in the past and wasn't impressed. This really depends on what you expect to face though, and how much you trust your predictions... let's not get into a long and unnecessary argument about whether that's the way to go. My unfavourable assessment of Cave-In assumed there were no extraordinary circumstances; sometimes the bad card is the correct choice. Given the rest of your deck, it might very well be.

[Dr. Math]

Point #1 -

If you run 18 lands in burn, you will get a 1-land hand 24.45% of the time (0-land - 6.99%). You have a 9.87% of hitting 3 lands on turn 3 on the play and a 20.90% chance on the draw. Those numbers are with no deck manipulation/thinning of any kind. Baubles will improve your odds while Fetchlands will hurt your odds (beyond your opening hand).

Point #2 -

Cave-In is a terrible card. 2 cards for 2 damage is terrible. It would be a little better if it were an instant, but it's not. You would NEVER want to play it early since a 1-for-2 trade is terrible and just about ANY two burn spells that can hit creatures will generate a 1-for-1 (2-for-2) situation. Once your opponent has 3 creatures in play, Cave-In starts to be advantageous (2-for-3 or more) but only if you don't have 3 land in play. If you get to three lands, Flamebreak is by far the better card since 1 card for 3 creatures is ALWAYS better than 2 cards for 3 creatures in a deck with very little card advantage. Now, if you limit yourself to 2-land situations, of course Cave-In beats Flamebreak since you can't cast the 3cc sorcery. But compare it to Pyroclasm which you could cast. Pyroclasm does the same 2 damage to the creatures, but doesn't reach the opponent, and doesn't damage you. If Cave-In is only really good vs fast aggro (which is the ONLY reason you would consider playing it), do I really want to be damaging myself against those decks? And if killing my opponent's board is my goal, the time it buys should give me the opportunity to deal 2 more damage to him before he rebuilds (since 90% of my cards do 2-3 damage per card). So, if I can only get to 2-land reliably, Pyroclasm > Cave-In.

Point 3 - Decks have 60 cards unless you play Battle of Wits (or Wishes depending on your point of view). Your maindeck has to be able to handle the decks you expect to see in a tournament. Your sideboard is there to help against your weaker match-ups. Having a sideboard is not an excuse to run crappy cards.

Question for The Rock - What dead business spells are your running? I've gotten trapped with a Fork in hand before, but it improves 90% of my topdecks, so I've never wanted to pitch it. I'm curious to hear which spells you run that become dead (unless you face a lot of Chalices, I guess).

Dr. Math...

And I've worked out a lot of the stuff I was working on, just putting the finishing touches on the improvements from Baubles. Will post probably next week.

[Funlicker]

Dr. Math I'd really love to see your burn list, since you put so much thought into calculations and such ^_^. I've had the best 4th turn consistency running the bauble list I posted a page or so ago.

The potential problems with my list are:
1. No fanatics
2. No Magma Jet
3. When I test, I avg PoP as 1R for 4 (which isn't always the case)
4. I play 8x Fetches (life loss, mana screw?)
5. I play 4x Flame Rift (life loss)
6. I run 1x Plateau 4x Helix (no helix=low hp,wasteland=no plateau 4 dead cards)

So I'm pretty confident I don't need to run fanatics, and possibly magma jet since it completely runes your chance at getting a 4th turn especially if you don't play flame rifts. I'm thinking mono red is the way to go, possibly no fetches to recover from no helixes? Ehh I'm fairly new to burn.

[Dr. Math]

@Funlicker

Here's the current list I'm testing...

19 Mountain

4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble

4 Chain Lightning
3 Fireblast
2 Flame Rift
3 Flamebreak
2 Fork
4 Incinerate
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
3 Rift Bolt

It's the same list I previously posted with these modifications - -6 Fetches -4 Skullscorch +7 Mountains +3 Rift Bolt. There is way too much land in this deck, but I am still trying to balance 'theory' with 'reality' to see how many can come out. 19 is the perfect number for a Bauble-less version to run, so I've started there and 'reality' says its way too much. I dropped the Skullscorch from the main because they are too situational and I wanted to focus more on speed.

I play Flamebreak because of the reasons I alluded to previously. I intend to get to 3 mana and if I don't (or don't think I will), I have to make play adjustments. I only run 3 Rift Bolt because it is a terrible top deck and I only run 3 Fireblast because I don't want to have to cast 2 of them.

@Your List By Point
1) Fanatics are very narrow. They are some good against a Lackey, but not much else. If someone attacks their Mage or non-threshed Werebear into it (or blocks with it), you've either already won or will very soon. It takes 2 turns for Fanatic to equal a Shock and 3 turns for Fanatic to equal a Lava Spike. If it does more damage than that, I'm getting value over 90% of my deck. But then, if my Fanatic lasts for 4 turns, what else am I doing?

2) Magma Jets let you keep playing. The odds of a turn 3 win are very small as it takes a very specific set of cards. If I fan 7 cards and don't see 1 of those speed win cards, I am always happy to see a Magma Jet. Cast it on your opponent's end step after you play that second land and set yourself up as best you can to win turn 4/5.

3) Price of Progress, in my opinion, is a finisher. If it isn't 4 damage on turn 2/3, I don't really want to cast it until later. If I'm not casting it until later, I don't want to see it until later. If I don't want to see it until later, isn't there something more consistent I can run? I run it in the sideboard. [I actually think Anhk of Mishra would be more consistent in the maindeck, but I haven't tested it... yet]

4) Flamebreak is at direct odds with Fetches. Getting to 3 Land is at direct odds with Fetches. Every fetch you crack lessens your chances of ripping land off the top of your deck. But unless I get 3 land in my opener, I'm going to need one/two off the top in the next couple of cards. A Fetch doesn't change the odds dramatically (>5%) but in a deck with this few lands it does change it noticably (~2% less chance to rip land if the first one is a Fetch). In a deck with no real card advantage, I would rather set myself up for consistency and try to get my deck to do what I want as often as possible and 2% more often is better than nothing.

5) I guard myself against Flame Rift life loss by splitting the slots with Fork. Fork is situationally much better, averages about an Incinerate, but is a terrible top deck. Overall, it is better than doing 8 damage to myself against Goblins (Aggro) by casting two Rifts [at least it is to me].

6) If you run Plateau, you have to run Fetches. I don't run Fetches because of my point in #4. I don't run Plateau because I don't run Fetches. There are also negatives running non-basics, i.e. Wasteland, Price of Progress becomes a low cost Char, etc. but it is largely personal preference. The whole deck must follow different rules. If you run non-basics, run at least 2 since it is unlikely you will get 2 Wasted and be stuck with so unplayable cards. Helix is the only maindeck spell worth running the splash for and it is one of the best burn spells ever since it is a 6 life swing in your favor (white offers a pile of sideboard worth cards to burn to justify the splash). The splashed deck is probably a completely different deck, though (or should be since red/white control could be > straight burn). Just a thought.

Dr. Math...

[TheRock]

Point #1 -

If you run 18 lands in burn, you will get a 1-land hand 24.45% of the time (0-land - 6.99%). You have a 9.87% of hitting 3 lands on turn 3 on the play and a 20.90% chance on the draw. Those numbers are with no deck manipulation/thinning of any kind. Baubles will improve your odds while Fetchlands will hurt your odds (beyond your opening hand).

Point #2 -

Cave-In is a terrible card. 2 cards for 2 damage is terrible. It would be a little better if it were an instant, but it's not. You would NEVER want to play it early since a 1-for-2 trade is terrible and just about ANY two burn spells that can hit creatures will generate a 1-for-1 (2-for-2) situation. Once your opponent has 3 creatures in play, Cave-In starts to be advantageous (2-for-3 or more) but only if you don't have 3 land in play. If you get to three lands, Flamebreak is by far the better card since 1 card for 3 creatures is ALWAYS better than 2 cards for 3 creatures in a deck with very little card advantage. Now, if you limit yourself to 2-land situations, of course Cave-In beats Flamebreak since you can't cast the 3cc sorcery. But compare it to Pyroclasm which you could cast. Pyroclasm does the same 2 damage to the creatures, but doesn't reach the opponent, and doesn't damage you. If Cave-In is only really good vs fast aggro (which is the ONLY reason you would consider playing it), do I really want to be damaging myself against those decks? And if killing my opponent's board is my goal, the time it buys should give me the opportunity to deal 2 more damage to him before he rebuilds (since 90% of my cards do 2-3 damage per card). So, if I can only get to 2-land reliably, Pyroclasm > Cave-In.

Point 3 - Decks have 60 cards unless you play Battle of Wits (or Wishes depending on your point of view). Your maindeck has to be able to handle the decks you expect to see in a tournament. Your sideboard is there to help against your weaker match-ups. Having a sideboard is not an excuse to run crappy cards.

Question for The Rock - What dead business spells are your running? I've gotten trapped with a Fork in hand before, but it improves 90% of my topdecks, so I've never wanted to pitch it. I'm curious to hear which spells you run that become dead (unless you face a lot of Chalices, I guess).

Dr. Math...

And I've worked out a lot of the stuff I was working on, just putting the finishing touches on the improvements from Baubles. Will post probably next week.

It seems that everybody else likes your examples a lot more. Granted, I only had 15 minutes to write up my last post, so yeah, as Iranon correctly alluded to, I did miss some stuff. However, it seems like you never even bothered to read my previous posts at all.

If deck strategy has come down to the "60-card" maindeck and have a sideboard to help bad matchups philosophy, then that's down-right awful. This is not a fantastic deck that just kills everything in its path; it needs to take chances and run different selections. You are all trying to defend a strategy that cannot consistently win MATCHES.

I'm truly sorry, but I must go. I did feel a point to address your one point now: I will get the rest within a few hours.

[Funlicker]

@Funlicker

Here's the current list I'm testing...

19 Mountain

4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble

4 Chain Lightning
3 Fireblast
2 Flame Rift
3 Flamebreak
2 Fork
4 Incinerate
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
3 Rift Bolt

It's the same list I previously posted with these modifications - -6 Fetches -4 Skullscorch +7 Mountains +3 Rift Bolt. There is way too much land in this deck, but I am still trying to balance 'theory' with 'reality' to see how many can come out. 19 is the perfect number for a Bauble-less version to run, so I've started there and 'reality' says its way too much. I dropped the Skullscorch from the main because they are too situational and I wanted to focus more on speed.

I play Flamebreak because of the reasons I alluded to previously. I intend to get to 3 mana and if I don't (or don't think I will), I have to make play adjustments. I only run 3 Rift Bolt because it is a terrible top deck and I only run 3 Fireblast because I don't want to have to cast 2 of them.

@Your List By Point
1) Fanatics are very narrow. They are some good against a Lackey, but not much else. If someone attacks their Mage or non-threshed Werebear into it (or blocks with it), you've either already won or will very soon. It takes 2 turns for Fanatic to equal a Shock and 3 turns for Fanatic to equal a Lava Spike. If it does more damage than that, I'm getting value over 90% of my deck. But then, if my Fanatic lasts for 4 turns, what else am I doing?

2) Magma Jets let you keep playing. The odds of a turn 3 win are very small as it takes a very specific set of cards. If I fan 7 cards and don't see 1 of those speed win cards, I am always happy to see a Magma Jet. Cast it on your opponent's end step after you play that second land and set yourself up as best you can to win turn 4/5.

3) Price of Progress, in my opinion, is a finisher. If it isn't 4 damage on turn 2/3, I don't really want to cast it until later. If I'm not casting it until later, I don't want to see it until later. If I don't want to see it until later, isn't there something more consistent I can run? I run it in the sideboard. [I actually think Anhk of Mishra would be more consistent in the maindeck, but I haven't tested it... yet]

4) Flamebreak is at direct odds with Fetches. Getting to 3 Land is at direct odds with Fetches. Every fetch you crack lessens your chances of ripping land off the top of your deck. But unless I get 3 land in my opener, I'm going to need one/two off the top in the next couple of cards. A Fetch doesn't change the odds dramatically (>5%) but in a deck with this few lands it does change it noticably (~2% less chance to rip land if the first one is a Fetch). In a deck with no real card advantage, I would rather set myself up for consistency and try to get my deck to do what I want as often as possible and 2% more often is better than nothing.

5) I guard myself against Flame Rift life loss by splitting the slots with Fork. Fork is situationally much better, averages about an Incinerate, but is a terrible top deck. Overall, it is better than doing 8 damage to myself against Goblins (Aggro) by casting two Rifts [at least it is to me].

6) If you run Plateau, you have to run Fetches. I don't run Fetches because of my point in #4. I don't run Plateau because I don't run Fetches. There are also negatives running non-basics, i.e. Wasteland, Price of Progress becomes a low cost Char, etc. but it is largely personal preference. The whole deck must follow different rules. If you run non-basics, run at least 2 since it is unlikely you will get 2 Wasted and be stuck with so unplayable cards. Helix is the only maindeck spell worth running the splash for and it is one of the best burn spells ever since it is a 6 life swing in your favor (white offers a pile of sideboard worth cards to burn to justify the splash). The splashed deck is probably a completely different deck, though (or should be since red/white control could be > straight burn). Just a thought.

Dr. Math...

Well I'm thinking with baubles and no fetches I can prolly lay down a 3rd turn mountain fairly often with 17 mountain, so I'll cut 2.
17 Mountain

4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble

4 Chain Lightning
4 Fireblast
3 Flame Rift
3 Flamebreak
1 Fork
4 Incinerate
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
4 Rift Bolt

This is basically the list I've been running the entire time, -8 fetches -1 plateau, and changing 4 PoP to 4 Magma Jet. The extra damage can cost you 4th turn wins though, so I'm not too sure about magma jet, but I'll be testing this list now too see if no fetches is better. Also I'll try ank's, but I'm not sure what I'd take out.

[redmage]

Cave-In is a terrible card.

I disagree.



2 cards for 2 damage is terrible.

I agree; that would be a bad play to make, but just because some players may choose to use a card "incorrectly", doesn't make the card itself bad.



It would be a little better if it were an instant, but it's not.

True, but with Pyroclasm, Rolling Earthquake, Flamebreak, Rough/Tumble, and Cave-in; we don't have any instant-speed "sweepers" there to choose from.



You would NEVER want to play it early

Never say never, it can be nice early if an opponent Lakey's out a SGC.



a 1-for-2 trade is terrible and just about ANY two burn spells that can hit creatures will generate a 1-for-1 (2-for-2) situation.

True, generally a "1-for-2 trade is terrible", but again; bad play choices don't make the card bad.

However, the gamestate must be taken into account, and sometimes (when virtual card advantage is taken into consideration) what seems to be a "1-for-2" is the correct play.



Once your opponent has 3 creatures in play, Cave-In starts to be advantageous (2-for-3 or more) but only if you don't have 3 land in play.

True, a 3-for-2 is often advantageous (however, if the cards allow, it's better to "just win" ;) ), but I wouldn't go as far as to say, "only if you don't have 3 land in play".



If you get to three lands, Flamebreak is by far the better card since 1 card for 3 creatures is ALWAYS better than 2 cards for 3 creatures

I don't see that as a valid argument. Three lands mean little if one gets "Port-ed" while you're staring at a Flamebreak.

It's like raudo said, "The reason that any one of these cards even exists in this topic is aggressive creature based meta. Otherwise you could replace flamebreak with some card like thunderbolt or chain of plasma".

So really, at 3 land, neither is the "best" option for the deck (in regards to winning the quickest way possible), but Cave-in is closer in that it doesn't make you "pause for a turn", in order to sweep an early creature assault.

"1 card for 3 creatures" is generally better than "2 cards for 3 creatures", but by this doesn't take into account the benefit, in this situation, that "2 cards for 3 creatures" frees up your mana; allowing you to continue your assault. Flamebreak often feels like a "break", in that; you sacrifice your speed/assault, for a full turn, in order to 'clean up' the board. Cave-in allows you to 'sweep' while leaving your mana open to be able to continue with your primary gameplan.



Now, if you limit yourself to 2-land situations, of course Cave-In beats Flamebreak since you can't cast the 3cc sorcery.

True, and I find that often the opponent, or draws, can limit burn to 2 lands. The nice part is that burn can win with only 2 lands just fine.



But compare it to Pyroclasm which you could cast. Pyroclasm does the same 2 damage to the creatures, but doesn't reach the opponent, and doesn't damage you.

This is a good comparison. Now imagine that the our "Pyroclasm" is "free" (2 life), allowing you to use that 2 mana to cast 6-10 more burn-to-the-dome on that same turn (a'la, no "break", like with Flamebreak).



If Cave-In is only really good vs fast aggro (which is the ONLY reason you would consider playing it), do I really want to be damaging myself against those decks?

I don't "get it"...

Isn't "fast aggro" the only reason we play Flamebreak to begin with?

Doesn't Flamebreak do more damage, to yourself, than Cave-in?

Actually, this brings up one of the other benefits of Cave-in...

In burn; we run many redundant playsets of cards that we want to see early on (for a turn 3/4 kill), but that we don't necessarily want to see a 2nd copy of.

Often, you don't want to see that 2nd Fireblast, Magma Jet, Flame Rift, Flamebreak/Cave-In, or Incinerate; or that 3rd/4th turn topdecked Fanatic, Spark Elemental, Rift Bolt, etc.

In this sense, Cave-in reads:

"Pay 2 life to do 2 damage to each creature, and remove a red card in your hand from the game to do 2 damage to each opponent."

With burn, I find that there are many times that I actually like "converting" that 2nd Fireblast, Flame Rift, etc. into a virtual "shock-to-the-dome" for "free" (2 life).

To get the 3rd/4th turn win we need many cards early, thus the playsets, that we don't necesarily want to see a 2nd copy of.

Cave-In hedges that gamble by allowing for conversion of resources; it fills the "sweeper" slot; and it speeds you up by not costing you a full turn tapping-out all of your mana.

With Cave-in; there's no "break" in the primary gameplan, and you get some use out of your excess (aka "dead") "business spells".



if I can only get to 2-land reliably, Pyroclasm > Cave-In.

I'd say that depends on the deck, and the meta that it's being played in.

[Dr. Math]

I guess if you want to point at flaws in a post, I can do the same...

A) Starstorm and Sulfurous Blast are both instant speed mass removal. They are both costed as such and are probably bad choices, but they are 'equivalent' mass removal spells that are available.

B) By early, I should've clarified that it was before the opponent had 3 or more creatures in play (where Cave-In becomes an effecient sweeper). If my opponent Lackeys out Siege-Gang, it's at least his second turn and he will end his turn with 4-5 goblins in play depending on if he plays another out of hand. In that match-up, I would not call that 'early' by any stretch.

C) If you take something out of context you can make any comment you want. I was pointing out situations where NOT to play Cave-In or situations where it would NOT give you an advantage to play Cave-In. I said nothing about it's quality relative to those situations. I can play Lightning Bolt on myself, that doesn't make it a bad card.

D) If my opponent Port's my land to avoid Flamebreak, he likely doesn't have a board worth Wrathing since he's using his mana to try and slow me down instead of developing his own position. Plus, he's leaving me mana open to cast spells that can target a creature. Port me? Okay, Bolt Warchief or Magma Jet Piledriver.

E) My point was that Burn shouldn't be just a pile of bargain red cards. It should be a tuned list capable of kicking the living crap out of any other deck (otherwise, why play it?). Look at my list, I don't just play playset after playset of cards. I play cards that I want to see and have tried to tune it so that I get them when I need (or have a good percentage chance of it) rather than just playing a bunch of burn and hope to get it when I need it to send it at the dome.

Back to Cave-In, though...

Cave-In is a terrible card. You would NEVER pay the printed casting cost since Rolling Earthquake would be strictly better (2R >> 3RR - greater meaning better) [NOTE: if you are in a game with Cave-In in your deck and access to 5 mana, you could pay to cast Cave-In]. So really the argument is limited to its alternate casting cost. You get a Pyroclasm + Firebolt without flashback for removing a red card from the game and paying 2 life. List the situations where this is a good deal and evaluate the percentage of times you will face those situations. That's how I evaluate cards.

Here are some realistic situations that I have encountered a lot when testing against fast aggro...

I have 3 mana up, my opponent has enough non-flying creatures to kill me next turn, I can't kill him with my hand this turn (he's at 12 life). I need to sweep his board. I have 3 cards in hand, 2 random burn spells, and either a Flamebreak or a Cave-In. Which is better? Flamebreak, obviously. Next turn I will have 2 burn spells + a draw and I will have done 3 damage to my opponent this turn, putting me in a good spot to come back to win. If I cast Cave-In, I can cast my other burn spell and do 5-6 damage to my opponent this turn, but now I am top-decking and my opponent has a good shot at rebuilding before me.

Same situation as above, but I only have 2 mana up, and I have 4 cards in hand - 3 random burn spells and one of either Pyroclasm (it doesn't make sense to compare Flamebreak since Cave-In is always better since it's the ONLY one of the two you can cast) or Cave-In. Which is better? Pyroclasm, for the same reason as above. If I 'clasm his board, I have 3 cards plus a draw to begin regaining control next turn. If I Cave-In, I can cast one or both of the remaing burn and hit him for 8 damage and move into top-deck mode allowing my opponent the opportunity to begin rebuilding.

Notice I limited myself to the cases where you can't win that turn. If I add the clarifier 'and you can get him to 2 life with 2 or more cards left in hand,' Cave-In becomes the hands down winner. In situation 1, my opponent needs to be at 6 life or less and in situation 2, 10 life or less. In this situation, though, it should be noted that Cave-In acts as a free Firebolt, not really as a board sweeper since you win and don't care about your opponent's board.

Cave-In is good if I only manage to get to 2 or less land, my opponent has a board worth wrathing, and I have either a dead card or a card that I can't use to slow my opponent down a turn to draw into something better. Cave-In is also awesome if I can get my opponent to 2 or 1 life, have 2 or more cards in hand [one of which must be Cave-In], and have access to 0 mana. But how often do those situations really come up? Do they come up enough to warrant Cave-In's inclusion in the deck?

If the percentage of the time Cave-In is better over any other card comes up more than not, then it should be played and I would play it. I have NOT seen this in my testing, though, and have convinced myself that there is almost ALWAYS a better option [short of the free Firebolt situations]. If you have seen this and can support the argument, please present the data not just nit-picking theoretical arguments of why you disagree with me, please. I ultimately can't tell you what to play, but I post to give people the benefit of my testing.

Dr. Math...

[TheRock]

If the percentage of the time Cave-In is better over any other card comes up more than not, then it should be played and I would play it. I have NOT seen this in my testing, though, and have convinced myself that there is almost ALWAYS a better option [short of the free Firebolt situations]. If you have seen this and can support the argument, please present the data not just nit-picking theoretical arguments of why you disagree with me, please. I ultimately can't tell you what to play, but I post to give people the benefit of my testing.

Dr. Math...

Your testing is with your list. My testing is with a different list. I understand that you said that it from the benefit of your testing, but I feel that my knowledge comes from testing both.

Flamebreak is fine if you follow that same formula, but that formula, as a whole, doesn't seem to work. People have won tournaments with Cave-In in their decks might I add.

As for point E of your post, you all probably know that the only creatures with a toughness of 3 in any of the heavily played decks are:

Mystic Enforcer pre-Threshold
Nimble Mongoose with threshold
Sea Drake
Rotting Giant
Wretched Anurid

Faerie Stompy is a bad matchup that I don't think Burn has any reasonable chance of winning. Red Death is not a great matchup either, but of course, the situation where FB kills one of those two creatures shouldn't come up that often. Then again, one of their best turn one plays is Ritual->Negator, which practically gives you the win right on the spot...

That leaves Threshold. You should be able to get Mongoose early on in the game if you choose since they need to apply a clock to you, and Enforcer is not that fast. Cave-In is almost completely Daze-proof, while Flamebreak just gets Dazed without much effort. It still wipes their Mages right off the board. (Keep in mind that I'm currently running Pillar maindeck right behind a potential Cave-In.)

There aren't many current situations where you need Flamebreak over Cave-In or Pyroclasm. As for situations where Cave-In isn't "bad", there are a lot of them. You will get useless Fireblasts, there will be times when you don't have the mana to play a spell, and you will get useless Pillars/PoPs too. In addition, you'll get extra turns to work with if you stop a creature assault

Finally, since I forgot to say this earlier and I want this to be known, this isn't a Cave-In vs. Flamebreak discussion; it's a Cave-In and (Pyrostatic Pillar or Price of Progress) vs. Flamebreak and some weaker Burn spell discussion. This is a discussion about more than 3 slots. Your attitude, Dr. Math, suggests that decks should just run great cards. That ideal means nothing for many decks, especially Fish and combo decks. Just look at the Solidarity thread --- Think Twice isn't a great card, but it works. Peek isn't a great card, but it works. Flamebreak and Cave-In aren't great cards, but you know what? They put goblins into a nice stack for you.

[Kazadoom]

guyes why not play like 2-3 cave ins +2-3 Flamebreak to complement each other.
I must admit that cave in firs better in my earthquake slot (I'm playing atm 2-3 quakes +2-3 Breaks) and I'm really thinking about purchasing 2 Cave'in's cause they really worked well.
It really took me a while but i think in my meta 5-6 Sweeper spells work out quite well (esp. cause you can wipe out mages quite good if they name one sweeper and you draw others :D )

[redmage]

I guess if you want to point at flaws in a post, I can do the same...

Relax, it's just a differing point of view regarding the playability/value of a card. This is a discussion board after all.



A) Starstorm and Sulfurous Blast are both instant speed mass removal.

Yes they are, but if I was gonna go that route; I'd probably just choose to cycle a Slice & Dice.

However...



They are both costed as such and are probably bad choices

...exactly, and thus they are not really "equivalent mass removal spells".



B) By early, I should've clarified that it was before the opponent had 3 or more creatures in play. If my opponent Lackeys out Siege-Gang, it's at least his second turn and ..... In that match-up, I would not call that 'early' by any stretch.

You certainly have a different view, than I, of what 'early' is. I'd say that the 2nd turn definately qualifies as early regardless of the match-up.



C) If you take something out of context you can make any comment you want.

What's out of context?

Did you not flatly say..


Point #2 -

Cave-In is a terrible card.

Nothing about that seems "out of context" to me. In fact; I'd be 'hard pressed' to find a clearer way to state that opinion.

I simply addressed the fact that; the reasons you gave, for it being 'terrible', were comprised of bad play choices, and bad plays don't make the card itself terrible. The reasons given, for it being 'terrible', were logical fallacies.



I was pointing out situations where NOT to play Cave-In or situations where it would NOT give you an advantage to play Cave-In.

You did, but you failed to represent/recognize the "pros" of the card, and again; bad play choices don't make the card itself 'terrible'.



D) If my opponent Port's my land to avoid Flamebreak, he likely doesn't have a board worth Wrathing since he's using his mana to try and slow me down instead of developing his own position.

This is somewhat true, more so when you're 'on the play', but since port is namely in Gobs; Lackey/Vial can have quite an army out by turn 3, if you're on the draw, and that's with mana available to port your turn 3 land drop too.



Plus, he's leaving me mana open to cast spells that can target a creature. Port me? Okay, Bolt Warchief or Magma Jet Piledriver.

This one's a philosophical difference. I don't want to bolt a warchief; it's one of my best 'business' spells, and I want it going to the dome.

Burn's best chance, v.s. Goblins, is to race it. Wasting 'Bolts', on critters, slows the process down severely.



E) My point was that Burn shouldn't be just a pile of bargain red cards.

Very true.



It should be a tuned list capable of kicking the living crap out of any other deck (otherwise, why play it?).

Exactly.

I've found that the best way to do that, in my meta, is through speed.

I used to play a more 'controlish' build (aka: 4 Fanatic + 4 Flamebreak), and it was a good deck where Flamebreak shined, but I wanted more speed and Cave-In allows that by letting my 'business spells' to continue "going for the dome" without pausing to 'break' for a turn. Flamebreak is a great 'control card', and I like having the control option (of a sweeper), but I don't want to 'waste' an entire turn playing the control role.

That said, I do still run 1 in my current '2 Cave-In, 1 Flamebreak' configuration.



Look at my list, I don't just play playset after playset of cards.

In all fairness, you are running 7 full playsets. ;) lol

But seriously, it looks pretty good. :thumbsup:

You've helped to alleviate the Flame Rift damage with a couple of Forks, and were able to trim some numbers with the added bauble draw. Nice choices.

Personally, I think I'd like the 4th Rift Bolt and 2 Cave-in, over the 4th Jet and 2 of the Flamebreaks, and then either -1 Mt/+1 Fireblast, or -2 Mt/+2 Barbarian Ring.

In my, earlier mentioned, 'controlish' build I too ran only 3 Rift Bolts. I used to believe that "if you run less than 20 lands (I ran 20 at the time); all 16 'Bolts' are mandatory", but I can see how baubles might help to mitigate that rule. During that time; I ended up switching -1 Lava Spike/+1 Rift Bolt (for it's resiliency) when Chalice started seeing a lot of SB play around here.



I play cards that I want to see and have tried to tune it so that I get them when I need (or have a good percentage chance of it)...

It looks like you've done a pretty good job too. Though it would seem that -1 Fireblast and -1 Riftbolt would lessen the chance for a turn 3 win; for the drawback of their poor topdeck status, baubles may be enough of a helper to somewhat mitigate that issue.



Back to Cave-In, though...

Cave-In is a terrible card.

Again, I've gotta disagree.



You would NEVER pay the printed casting cost since Rolling Earthquake would be strictly better (2R >> 3RR - greater meaning better)

This has nothing to do with Cave-In being, or not being, "terrible".

By this argument Condescend is "strictly better" than Force of Will; Char is "strictly better" than Fireblast....

'Never' paying the printed CC doesn't make a card 'terrible'.



[NOTE: if you are in a game with Cave-In in your deck and access to 5 mana, you could pay to cast Cave-In].

If you're playing burn and have access to 5 mana; there are more serious issues going on than 'having, or not having, Cave-In'. ;)



So really the argument is limited to its alternate casting cost.

Yup, and it's alternate CC has quite a few benefits too.



You get a Pyroclasm + Firebolt without flashback for removing a red card from the game and paying 2 life.

Pretty much, but you also get to continue your quick assault (towards the dome) with the unused mana, convert excess resources into 'free' damage, gain suprise factor, gain resilience to Port, hit fliers, sweep earlier (if ya want to), and reduce your self inflicted damage (when compared to Flamebreak, and in conjunction with 'converting Flame Rifts' if/when needed); just to name a few of it's advantages.



List the situations where this is a good deal and evaluate the percentage of times you will face those situations. That's how I evaluate cards.

I as well.

In my meta; the benefits, listed above, 'pass the evaluation' with flying colors.

The issue is that you generally havn't "Listed the situations where this is a good deal". You've primarily chosen to focus on the situations where you feel it is a 'bad deal' (through providing examples of bad play choices) and used that to justify your opinion that "Cave-In is a terrible card".

You have every right to your opinion, but opinions are not facts.

Cave-In may not be the right card for your deck/meta, but I certainly disagree with calling it a "terrible card". It's more than proven itself viable to myself and others. Dark Ritual doesn't suit my deck but I'm not about to call it a terrible card.



Here are some situations that I have encountered a lot when testing against fast aggro...

I have 3 mana up, my opponent has enough non-flying creatures to kill me next turn, I can't kill him with my hand this turn (he's at 12 life). I need to sweep his board. I have 3 cards in hand, 2 random burn spells, and either a Flamebreak or a Cave-In. Which is better? Flamebreak, obviously. Next turn I will have 2 burn spells + a draw and I will have done 3 damage to my opponent this turn, putting me in a good spot to come back to win. If I cast Cave-In, I can cast my other burn spell and do 5-6 damage to my opponent this turn, but now I am top-decking and my opponent has a good shot at rebuilding before me.

You encounter this a lot? :puzzled:

I'm trying to figure the math on this one, but it seems that you're either; missing cards; it's beyond turn 3 and you havn't been assaulting 'the dome', or the opponent has gained life along the way. What turn is it? Are you waiting for baubble draws? There seems to be a lot of missing info because this seems pretty unusual/situational.

'Bad' topdecking can be a drawback to Baubles. Personally, because of my threat density, if I've already got 3 lands in play; I'd feel pretty secure going into topdeck mode for those last few points against fast aggro. Honestly, I'd doubt that they could rebuild before me, and if those "2 random burn spells" happened to be dual Fireblasts, or Flame Rifts,... I'd rather have the Cave-In. I've got a far better chance of drawing threats than the 4th Mt., and I'd likely rather not take 8 (total) from Flame Rifts in that match-up.



Same situation as above, but I only have 2 mana up, and I have 4 cards in hand - 3 random burn spells and one of either Pyroclasm (it doesn't make sense to compare Flamebreak since Cave-In is always better since it's the ONLY one of the two you can cast) or Cave-In.

Well, it's good to see you recognize a situation where Cave-in would outshine Flamebreak, but we can't just leave it at that now can we. ;)

Now Pyroclasm has to try and jump in the mix to "put Cave-in in it's place". LOL

The thing is; it absolutely make sense to "compare it to Flamebreak".

Actually, it doesn't make sense to compare it to Pyroclasm, because nobody is using Pyroclasm, since it doesn't hit the dome (aka, it can be a 'dead card').

And again, the numbers don't add up. The earliest that this scenerio could play out is on turn 3, on the draw, in which case you're missing a card in hand and/or the damage doesn't add up. I can't figure out if drawing/cracking baubbles is throwing the numbers off; if you're not sending damage to the dome; and/or it's now beyond the 3rd turn. Whatever it is, something odd is going on there to reach such an unusual gamestate. If it's 'stagger' from bauble draw; you should be able to rebuild quicker. If not, there seems to have been a 'misallocation of roles' somewhere along the line.



Which is better? Pyroclasm, for the same reason as above.

Are you referring to a post board game? Do you play 'clasm in your SB?
Generally, no one plays 'clasm MD because it doesn't hit the dome. You seem to be creating a "straw-man" argument with 'clasm, and (since there seems to be a missing card in hand...) I'd rather have the Cave-In so that I could continue the race with my unused mana.



Notice I limited myself to the cases where you can't win that turn.

You certainly did.

However, the scenerios don't seem very 'common'.



If I add the clarifier 'and you can get him to 2 life with 2 or more cards left in hand,' Cave-In becomes the hands down winner.

I actually see situations like that more often then you realize.



In situation 1, my opponent needs to be at 6 life or less and in situation 2, 10 life or less. In this situation, though, it should be noted that Cave-In acts as a free Firebolt, not really as a board sweeper since you win and don't care about your opponent's board.

If you're winning that turn, it doesn't really matter if it's 'a free firebolt' where you 'don't care' about the sweep.

It's a 'free firebolt' that just won you the game.



Cave-In is good if I only manage to get to 2 or less land, my opponent has a board worth wrathing, and I have either a dead card or a card that I can't use to slow my opponent down a turn to draw into something better.(bolded by me)

"And"?

I'd say that any one of those situations is often good enough on it's own. You don't need all three for it to be usefull, and if you get all three then Cave-in is far better than just 'good'.



Cave-In is also awesome if I can get my opponent to 2 or 1 life, have 2 or more cards in hand [one of which must be Cave-In], and have access to 0 mana. But how often do those situations really come up? Do they come up enough to warrant Cave-In's inclusion in the deck?

I'd say they (this and/or the above scenerios) come up fairly often, and I do think it's worth the inclusion (in my deck/meta).



If the percentage of the time Cave-In is better over any other card comes up more than not, then it should be played and I would play it.

It depends on your deck and meta. I find that speed is a key component to successful burn, in my meta, and Cave-in gives me a control card (sweeper option) without sacrificing my primary gameplan (to race).



I have NOT seen this in my testing, though, and have convinced myself that there is almost ALWAYS a better option [short of the free Firebolt situations].

Out of curiousity; how much testing of Cave-in have you done? What numbers did you run of it?

If you played it like some of the examples you've provided, then I could certainly understand why you may feel like 'Cave-in is terrible'.



If you have seen this and can support the argument, please present the data not just nit-picking theoretical arguments of why you disagree with me, please.

Again, relax.

It's just a differing point of view regarding the playability/value of a card. This is a discussion board after all.

I just don't agree that bad play choices make a card itself bad. It's false logic.

I've already listed many of the cards benefits that I found during testing.

You have data, and whether you chose to ignore it, or it just doesn't fit your deck/meta... only you know the answer.



I ultimately can't tell you what to play, but I post to give people the benefit of my testing.

Dr. Math...

Same here. :thumbsup:

Redmage

@TheRock


this isn't a Cave-In vs. Flamebreak discussion; it's a Cave-In and (Pyrostatic Pillar or Price of Progress) vs. Flamebreak and some weaker Burn spell discussion.

If ya add Flame Rift to the "and (Pyrostatic Pillar or Price of Progress)" list; I'd say you hit the nail right on the head. :thumbsup:

[redmage]

I had an interesting game example, with my 2 favorite splash/meta cards, tonight.
Barring the turn 3 turn, "god hand", opening sequence of 4 "bolts", a 4-for-2, 3 Mts., and a Fireblast. This would be my close 2nd choice...

On the draw; I open a hand of 2 Mts, 2 Rift Bolt, L. Bolt, Cave-In, and Fireblast.

I love it already. :D

Turn 1
[Opponent:] Play Mt, Lackey.

[Me:] Draw Browbeat :) , Play Mt., Suspend Rift Bolt

Turn 2
[Opponent:] Draws, Play Mt., Lackey attack (-1) + drops Warchief, Tap 2 Mts. for 2 Piledrivers. [Me: 19 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt (-3) Draw Fireblast, Play Mt., Suspend Riftbolt. play Cave-In removing Fireblast (-2) [Opponent: 15 life] [Me: 17 life]

Turn 3
[Opponent:] Draw, Play wasteland, Play + attack Warchief [Me: 15 life] I EOT L. Bolt (-3) [Opponent: 12 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt (-3) [Opponent: 9 life], Draw & play Mt., Play Browbeat (-5) [Opponent: 4 life], Fireblast (-4) [Opponent: 0 life]. GG

Did the opponent make a bad play by taking the 5 from the Browbeat?

I don't think so; I think he was screwed either way. He had 2 Mts, 1 Wasteland, and 1 Warchief in play; along with only 1 card in hand (and an upcoming topdeck) to try and deal 15 in his next turn. If he didn't take 5; I likely wouldn't have played the Fireblast. So, he'd be at 9 life while I'd have 3 land in play, a fireblast in hand, and 4 other cards (3 from the 'Beat and 1 from my next draw) to deal out 9 on my 4th turn. I definately like my odds either way there.

Did I luck out with the getting 3rd Mt. topdeck?

At 18 lands; the odds say I'm supposed to see 3 in my first 10 cards, so I could have just as easily drawn it on the first, or second, turn. If, by chance, I didn't see it; I would have had another 'business spell' in it's place, and I would still have been able to freely sweep the board against a critical turn 2 'agressive' start with only 2 lands.

Here, the converting of an extra Fireblast (along with the deceptively powerful 'Browbeat dilemma') contributed to a solid turn 3 win. Had the 2nd Fireblast been a castable spell, and I were truly stuck at 2 Mts., Browbeat could have easily been pitched, and I'd still be sitting pretty well; at 15 life, with burn to throw, and facing little from across the table.

The key is that with Cave-In; I didn't 'fear' the 1st turn Lackey. It didn't disrupt my role, as the aggressor, in the slightest. I kept my 'business spells' going straight 'to-the-dome' knowing that I could safely sweep at any time (even turn 2, with only 2 lands, if/when needed). This allowed me to stay agressive and stick with the primary gameplan... the race. Even better, had the 2nd Fireblast been a Magma Jet instead (just as likely of a topdeck), there's no rush/temptation to slow myself down, for 2 turns, by scrying 2nd turn in order to 'guarantee' the 3rd land drop needed for casting Flamebreak on the 3rd turn (an issue that I found too often in my meta). I'll do it if the cards make me, but I don't ever want to play the 'control role'; I want to stay 'aggressive' and Cave-In readily allows for that.

[Eldariel]

The issue is, your opponent misplayed rather badly. If you drop a Warchief, dropping multiple Piledrivers from it is just plain dumb. You'll win by dropping them next turn too, and if your opponent sweeps, you just wasted multiples of your most important cards in the MU. And everyone knows, red burn runs sweepers. The correct play there is to make them waste their burn on your Warchief by casting the creatures on your next turn.

[Tacosnape]

You know, after testing it in my calculation system, I now don't understand how I ever played Burn without Chrome Mox. It's incredible. It lets you kill on turn 4 with incredible regularity and gives you a few turn threes. It also allows you to drop a turn one Ankh of Mishra, which in my opinion makes the Ankh very playable.

[Shugyosha]

I now don't understand how I ever played Burn without Chrome Mox.

With it you will have less mountains which is bad for Fireblasts. You need two cards to get one mana source in a deck that has no actual card draw and in the first game board sweepers (Vengeance, Deed, Disc) will destroy it.

Ok when you got it it might be helpful but you will have it in less than 50% of your opening hands (even less if you play only 3). So in over 50% it is just an awful bad topdecked card.

[redmage]

The issue is, your opponent misplayed rather badly.

Hindsight being 20/20; you may be right.



If you drop a Warchief, dropping multiple Piledrivers from it is just plain dumb.

That depends, it can be a very agressive/successful option if/when you're on the play.



You'll win by dropping them next turn too...

Not nescessarily, He dropped a 3rd turn Wasteland (aka, he likely had no 3rd Mt.) so the most that he could swing for, on his 3rd turn (with Lackey, Warchief, and dropping 2 Drivers with his 2 Mts) was 17 dmg. I was at 19 life. So actually, he wouldn't have won (at least 'not on turn 3') if he had waited.



and if your opponent sweeps, you just wasted multiples of your most important cards in the MU. And everyone knows, red burn runs sweepers.

True, Red has sweepers, but that sweeper is 'usually' Flamebreak. He had Lackey, Warchief, and 2 'Drivers in play; while I had only 1 Mt. and a suspended Rift Bolt. From his point of view, on the play, he was virtually guaranteed two turns of swinging before I hit my 3rd land drop in order to 'sweep' (and that's if I hit it).

Should he expect Pyroclasm on my 2nd turn?

I don't think so; burn doesn't generally run it (since it doesn't hit the dome), and a suspended Riftbolt is a pretty good tip-off that I'm playing burn (as opposed to Dead Red, etc.).

Should he expect Cave-In?...

Well, with me he should. lol
But not against most burn decks.



The correct play there is to make them waste their burn on your Warchief by casting the creatures on your next turn.

Maybe...

Lets play it out.

Turn 1
[Opponent:] Play Mt, Lackey.

[Me:] Draw Browbeat :) , Play Mt., Suspend Rift Bolt

Turn 2
[Opponent:] Draws, Play Mt., Lackey attack (-1) + drops Warchief [Me: 19 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt (-3) Draw Fireblast, Play Mt., Suspend Riftbolt. play Cave-In removing Fireblast #2 (-2) (Lackey + Warchief die) [Opponent: 15 life] [Me: 17 life]

Turn 3
[Opponent:] Draw, Play wasteland, Play + attack Warchief [Me: 15 life] I EOT L. Bolt (-3) [Opponent: 12 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt (-3) [Opponent: 9 life], Draw & play Mt., Play Browbeat (-5) [Opponent: 4 life], Fireblast (-4) [Opponent: 0 life]. GG

What if he didn't take 5 from the 'Beat?

Turn 4; he'd have 2 Mts, 1 Wasteland, and 1 Warchief in play (along with 2 piledrivers + 2 cards in hand) to try and deal 15 damage that turn. The 'Drivers and 'Chief could do 12 (tapping down both his Mts), so the other 2 cards would have to be a 4th land (specifically a red source) and a cheap Goblin for it to even be possible. A 4th land drop on the 4th turn, while on the play, is not something that Gobs is designed to do. A Vial in there, any two gobs, another non-red land, a SGC, a Ringleader, etc. all mean that he's likely lost.

If he didn't take 5; I likely wouldn't have played the Fireblast, and he'd have to deal with that too (if, by small chance, he did get the "Mt + 'cheap' drop" for his last 2 cards). So basically, he'd be at 9 life while I'd have 3 land in play, a fireblast in hand, and 3 other cards from the 'Beat (plus another card on my next draw) to deal out 9 on my 4th turn. Again, I like my odds either way there. With 3 Mts in play, a Fireblast, and 4 other cards; I should be able to deal 9 damage without fear.

The route he chose was to race (a Flamebreak) while he was on the play, and he did give himself the 'best possible chance' (for a turn 3 win) with the choices he made. Remember, he had/drew the second Warchief, so he had a turn 3 win 'in-hand'. He'd be swinging for lethal, with an open Wasteland, while I'd still be staring at only 2 Mts (aka: no Flamebreak to fear).

Having Flamebreak would have forced me into the control role (aka: having to trade 'business/Bolts' 1-for-1, to stall, untill Flamebreak came online, and that's assuming I'd actually hit the 3rd land drop in time). Beautifully, because of Cave-In, I didn't have to 'waste my business spells' on his warchief. If I'd had Flamebreak, I would have needed to switch roles (aka: play the Control role) in order to survive. My deck doesn't want to play 'the Control', because that's when it tends to fizzle & 'run out of gas'. Cave-In allowed me to continue my role as the aggressor, sweep timely with surprise factor, and convert unneeded resources; All of which boiled together into a turn 3 win of my own while halting his.

[Eldariel]

True, Red has sweepers, but that sweeper is 'usually' Flamebreak. He had Lackey, Warchief, and 2 'Drivers in play; while I had only 1 Mt. and a suspended Rift Bolt. From his point of view, on the play, he was virtually guaranteed two turns of swinging before I hit my 3rd land drop in order to 'sweep' (and that's if I hit it).

No, he had to count on you at the very least Bolting your Warchief if you can't sweep just yet, making it impossible for him to kill you the next turn, giving you the time to Flamebreak, and killing more than just the Warchief depending on the sitiuation. Good point that if he didn't have a land in hand, his play might've indeed been correct. Still, playing 1 Piledriver turn 2 is generally better than playing 2 since you can win if opponent doesn't have a sweeper and you don't lose everything if he does. But yea, if he had only 2 lands, he was kinda lost anyways (since he's forced to give you all the time in the world to kill you even if you're forced to burn creatures), somewhat vindicating the play.

Should he expect Pyroclasm on my 2nd turn?


I don't think so; burn doesn't generally run it (since it doesn't hit the dome), and a suspended Riftbolt is a pretty good tip-off that I'm playing burn (as opposed to Dead Red, etc.).

Should he expect Cave-In?...

Well, with me he should. lol
But not against most burn decks.

It's not as rarely played as you make it seem, it's a rather common choice. But Burn lacks an agreed-upon decklist, so he should expect randomness and play accordingly.




Maybe...

Lets play it out.

Turn 1
[Opponent:] Play Mt, Lackey.

[Me:] Draw Browbeat :) , Play Mt., Suspend Rift Bolt

Turn 2
[Opponent:] Draws, Play Mt., Lackey attack (-1) + drops Warchief [Me: 19 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt (-3) Draw Fireblast, Play Mt., Suspend Riftbolt. play Cave-In removing Fireblast #2 (-2) (Lackey + Warchief die) [Opponent: 15 life] [Me: 17 life]

Turn 3
[Opponent:] Draw, Play wasteland, Play + attack Warchief [Me: 15 life] I EOT L. Bolt (-3) [Opponent: 12 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt (-3) [Opponent: 9 life], Draw & play Mt., Play Browbeat (-5) [Opponent: 4 life], Fireblast (-4) [Opponent: 0 life]. GG

What if he didn't take 5 from the 'Beat?

Turn 4; he'd have 2 Mts, 1 Wasteland, and 1 Warchief in play; along with 2 piledrivers + 2 cards in hand to try and deal 15 damage that turn. The 'Drivers and 'Chief could do 12 (tapping down both his Mts), so the other 2 cards would have to be a 4th land (specifically a red source) and a cheap Goblin for it to even be possible. A 4th land drop on the 4th turn, while on the play, is not something that Gobs is designed to do. A Vial in there, any two gobs, another non-red source, a SGC, a Ringleader, etc. all mean that he's likely lost.

If he didn't take 5; I likely wouldn't have played the Fireblast, and he'd have to deal with that too (if, by small chance, he did get the "Mt + 'cheap' drop" for his last 2 cards). So basically, he'd be at 9 life while I'd have 3 land in play, a fireblast in hand, and 3 other cards from the 'Beat (plus another card on my next draw) to deal out 9 on my 4th turn. Again, I like my odds either way there.

The route he chose was to race (on the play), and he did give himself the 'best possible chance' for a turn 3 win with the choices he made. Remember, he had/drew the second Warchief, so he had a turn 3 win 'in-hand'. He'd be swinging for lethal, with an open Wasteland, while I'd still be staring at only 2 Mts (aka: no Flamebreak to fear).

Having Flamebreak would have forced me into the control role (aka: having to trade 'business/Bolts' 1-for-1, to stall, untill Flamebreak came online, and that's assuming I'd actually hit the 3rd land drop in time). Beautifully, because of Cave-In, I didn't have to 'waste my business spells' on his warchief. If I'd had Flamebreak, I would have needed to switch roles (aka: play the Control role) in order to survive. My deck doesn't want to be 'the Control', because that's when it tends to fizzle & 'run out of gas'. Cave-In allowed me to continue my role as the aggressor, sweep timely with surprise factor, and convert unneeded resources; All of which boiled together into a turn 3 win of my own while halting his.

You probably had him beat anyways, but he didn't keep his chances open. If you can give you the 1% chance to win, you should, especially if it comes at little cost.

[redmage]

No, he had to count on you at the very least Bolting your Warchief if you can't sweep just yet, making it impossible for him to kill you the next turn, giving you the time to Flamebreak, and killing more than just the Warchief depending on the sitiuation.

See, there's the catch; I really don't want to bolt his Warchief, and that's exactly the type of 'Control play' that I could be forced to make if Cave-In had been a Flamebreak instead. In my experience; Flamebreak can force a 'misassignment of role' that often leads to fizzle.

Using the same example (with Flamebreak instead).

On the draw; I open a hand of 2 Mts, 2 Rift Bolt, L. Bolt, Flamebreak, and Fireblast. Looks Good.

Turn 1
[Opponent:] Play Mt, Lackey.

[Me:] Draw Browbeat, Play Mt., Suspend Rift Bolt

Turn 2
[Opponent:] Draws, Play Mt., Lackey attack (-1) + drops Warchief, Tap 2 Mts. for 2 Piledrivers. [Me: 19 life]

[Me:] Rift Bolt...

What do I hit? Warchief? One of the 2 Piledrivers? Will he Lackey out a SGC, Ringleader, or Matron the following turn? Do I go for the dome?

I've gotta hit something. I'm at 19, and he's already got 17 on the table...

[Me:] Rift Bolt - Piledriver, Draw Fireblast, Play Mt., Suspend Riftbolt. [Opponent: 20 life] [Me: 19 life]
[my hand: L. Bolt, Flamebreak, Browbeat, and 2 Fireblast.]

Turn 3
[Opponent:] Draw, Play wasteland....

Now what?

He's got a Lackey, Warchief, Piledriver, 2 Mts + a Wasteland in play; and a Warchief + 1 'Mystery card' in hand.

He's still at 20, I'm at 19, and he can swing for 8 as it stands (with cards + mana open).

Does he cast the 2nd warchief (for 2) to swing for 12? Is his 'mystery card' a timely Ringleader (castable because of Warchief #1), an easily castable Matron (to fetch another still-castable piledriver, or a Lackey-able threat), a Lackey-able SGC, or a 'Port which would stop my hopefully upcoming Flamebreak (when paired with his untapped Wasteland if he plays Warchief #2)?

Many of the possibilities that I now 'fear' would have won me the game (stuck in his hand) if Flamebreak was a Cave-In instead; and the odds are pretty good that he's got (or will have soon) a Ringleader, or the Matron to fetch it with. So he could/should be sitting fairly 'ready' for any post-Flamebreak action.

I've got a suspended Rift Bolt with 1 of my 2 Mountains left untapped, and a L. Bolt in hand (along with Flamebreak, Browbeat, and 2 Fireblast).

Do I Lightning Bolt another creature, or do I finally deal a bit to the dome? The odds tell me it is, but I don't yet know that my next card is a Mt. (allowing for the 3rd turn Flamebreak).

Things aren't looking so hot anymore if I'm entering my 3rd turn with the Opponent still at 20 life.

An aggresive start by the Opponent, combined with having Flamebreak, has forced me into the 'Control role' (one I don't want to play) for too long; and the longer I play that role, the worse it looks for my deck.

Cave-In allows me to stay in the agressive/proactive role; 'forcing' my gameplan through vs. aggro. I've never had to excessively commit myself to switching roles (spending multiple turns) due to a Cave-In being in-hand. Flamebreak not only commits your 3rd turn role (to that of 'being the Control'), but also can commit your first and second turn 'roles' as well.

Don't get me wrong Flamebreak's a good card, I run 1-2 MD, but it can have it's drawbacks; and I've never had it contribute to a turn 3 kill. :D



Good point that if he didn't have a land in hand, his play might've indeed been correct.

Thanks; It's a rough call. He certainly would have needed the stars to align in order to pull it off. Maybe that's why he chose to 'take 5' from the 'Beat.



Still, playing 1 Piledriver turn 2 is generally better than playing 2 since you can win if opponent doesn't have a sweeper and you don't lose everything if he does.

I can see your point. 1 could be the 'correct' way to go, but I can also see the temptation to 'race a Flamebreak' (with an opening like that on the play) and force me into the control role.



But yea, if he had only 2 lands, he was kinda lost anyways (since he's forced to give you all the time in the world to kill you even if you're forced to burn creatures), somewhat vindicating the play.

It's not so vindicating with my current build.
I want threats & speed; and I don't want to play the 'Control role' for very long or I'll likely fizzle in that match-up. I need all "business' going to the dome.

Although, with a more 'Controlish' build (4 Fanatic, 4 Magma Jet, 4 Flamebreak) that could certainly be true.



Burn lacks an agreed-upon decklist, so he should expect randomness and play accordingly.

Good point.

It's a very meta, and style, dependent deck.

1 Piledriver, or just holding them both for the next turn, could very well be the better play "just in case", when 'the randomness of burn' is taken into account. Ironically, he may have misjudged his own 'role' by being so agressive.



You probably had him beat anyways, but he didn't keep his chances open. If you can give you the 1% chance to win, you should, especially if it comes at little cost.

Can't argue there. 'Correct' choices should always optimize your chances no matter how 'grim' the situation. And yeah; I probably had him beat anyways. I just got a 'kick' outta seeing one of my sweepers contribute to, while stopping, a turn 3 kill. :D

[Liitis]

Hi everyone, I'm new here! (no sh*t ...) Well atleast new to this posting thingie.

I decided that burn should be my first legacy deck, because it seems to be quite simple (despite Cave-In/ Flamebreak or Brownbeat/something issues) to build. It's quite cheap too, and cards are easy to acquire.

Here's my list, it's the best that I could figure out.

18 lands

18 Mountain

8 Artifacts

4 Mishras Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble

34 Burn

Core 20
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Fireblast

Rest 14
4 Incinerate
4 Magma Jet
3 Flame Break
3 Price of Progress

I'm not sure about the last 6 spells. And land count might be too high?

Anyway, there's one card that I have mixed feelings about: Landslide. It could function as additional lightning bolt and increase chances of winning on turn 3, but it has few severe drawbacks. Like you must have 3 lands for it to deal 3 points of damage and it has terrible synergy with fireblast :frown:

Ps: Is it necessary to post in that introduction threat?

[redmage]

Hi everyone

Hello Liitis.



I decided that burn should be my first legacy deck, because it seems to be quite simple (despite Cave-In/ Flamebreak or Brownbeat/something issues) to build.

Lol

Yeah, there's actually quite a few issues: Forks, Browbeats, Price of Progress, Flame Rifts, Pyrostatic Pillar, Ankh of Mishra, etc. (just to name a few).

It all boils down to your meta and playstyle.



Here's my list...

Looks pretty good.



I'm not sure about the last 6 spells.

Yours are definately viable choices if your meta allows.

You want a few 4-for-2s, to enable the turn 3 kill, and POP can certainly fill that role in the right meta. Other options include Flame Rifts, Pyrostatic Pillar, Ankh of Mishra, and Fork (with Fireblast). All have their pros and cons so it's up to your personal preference, playstyle, and meta.

As to the Flamebreaks; It's your call. I like a 2 Cave-In/1-2 Flamebreak setup in my MD/meta, but I can't say if it's right for "Bauble Burn" in your meta. They're both good cards, and both have their own drawbacks & benefits, but ideally they'd both be gone in lieu of more 3-for-1 'Bolts', and 4-for-2s.



And land count might be too high?

I'd hope for a reply from Dr. Math on that one. I'm no "Bauble Burn" expert.

I run 18 land pretty comfortably without Baubles, but it would seem, to me, that their added draws might allow you to trim 1 or 2.

Baubles seem to be played to 'effectively' make the deck 'only 52 cards', and 18/52 seems a bit high. However; you do want 3 land, 3rd turn, with Flamebreaks; so I'd be leary of dropping anywhere below 17 if that's your needed/only 'sweeper of choice'.



Anyway, there's one card that I have mixed feelings about: Landslide.

Hmmm...



It could function as additional lightning bolt and increase chances of winning on turn 3, but it has few severe drawbacks. Like you must have 3 lands for it to deal 3 points of damage and it has terrible synergy with fireblast

Personally, I don't see many situations where Landslide would benifit the list. The lack of synergy, with Fireblast alone, seems like enough of a reason not to include it in my list. It seems like far to high of a cost for it's small chance of a 'worthwile' benefit.

[BlinX]

I'm no burn expert :S, but the rough list I've been having the most success with is:

List:
0dmg
18 Mountain
8 Baubles

3dmg
16 Bolts
4 Incinerate
3 Flamebreak/cave-in

4dmg
4 Fireblast
4 Flame Rift
3 Price of Progress

Intro:
Alot of people talk about how 1R-4dmg spells (flame rift, possibly fork, possibly PoP) are necessary for a turn 3 win. However, most builds I've tested from this thread have a hard time earning turn 4 wins. By turn 4 if you've played the ideal 3 lands you should have had 7 possible cards to your expense. If any of those cards are dead (2x Fireblast, 2x Flamebreak, extra Mt.) then it's impossible for a turn 4 win unless you've played 2x 4dmg spells. Example: T1 bolt, T2 Rift Flame, T3 Bolt Incinerate, T4 Fireblast/Rift flame/PoP/ect...). With Magma jet (1R-2) It becomes impossible to win by turn 4 if any of your cards in hand are dead draws, and impossible to win by turn 3 regardless if you have great draws.

So to explain my card choices:

Land
18 Mountain:
I don't run fetches because combined with Flame Rift and Flame Break they can be deadly, and they lessen the chance of drawing 3 mt. Also, I don't run Plateau's/helix, because I don't run fetches and because a Wasteland could make all your Helix dead cards.

3dmg spells
16 Bolts:
The bolts are superior to the Incinerate, so If anything goes it'd be Incinerate.
Incinerate:
Weakest card in the deck IMO. I play it over magma jet, considering that with magma jet a 3rd turn win is impossible and a 4th turn win is nearly impossible. If you ever come close to a 4th turn win, running Magma Jet, you'll probably notice that you're 1pt of dmg away from the kill.. that's where Incinerate shines. If Magma Jet makes turn 3 and 4 wins nearly impossible, than it's only making your turn 5 wins more consistent. Plus Baubles already make the deck more consistent.
Flamebreak:
As of now I run 3x Flamebreak. I rarely if ever want my Flamebreak to be a Cave-In, because I usually grab 3 Mts. so it doesn't weaken my chance for a turn 4 win by much. I really don't want to get into the Flamebreak vs. Cave-In debate though.

4dmg Spells
Fireblast: Duh.
Flame Rift:
This card is key to burn's success IMO. The point of my list is to increase the count of 4dmg burn spells to increase the chance of a turn 3-4 win. Flame Rift is the next best.
Price of Progress:
Ehhh.. I believe in most metagames it'd be a 1R-4dmg on avg. There really isn't any other possible 1R-4 available anyway, and fork is only a 1R-4 if you draw a fireblast. If I ran fork I'd only run 1. Ankh of Mishra may be a good substitute here.

Summary:
Ok, so the basic Idea is to cut Magma Jet and increase the 4dmg burn. I know Magma Jet is a good card, but IMO it destroys turn 3-4 wins and only makes turn 5 wins more consistent. With baubles I don't think it's needed, although baubles run the risk of being dead draws themselves in rare circumstances. With Magma Jet and a low 4dmg burn count, I rarely get turn 4 wins and always miss them by 1-2pts of dmg.

I hope you guys like my list and understand my reasoning behind my choices. I also hope that you guys can provide some constructive criticism, and not yell at me for an entire 2 pages about how Cave-In is better then Flamebreak, lol. Thank you for listening. Oh, and I need help with making a sideboard.

[kicks_422]

Magma Jet makes your draws lethal by scrying away useless lands. It's -1 damage from Incinerate, but scrying away a land so you can draw a Bolt next turn makes it 2+3 damage over two turns, instead of 3+0.

[Kazadoom]

And often i don't even throw magma jet to the dome instead burning something that could be letthal to by a turn.
Jet is not a speed but a consistency tool keep that in mind!

[Iranon]

Hello Liitis!

Welcome, and have fun with Legacy. That deck looks solid; Price of Progress is usually maindeckable and that's the only questionable choice. 18 lands is high for Bauble Burn but not excessively so - in short, a good starting point. Forget Landslide. Seriously. If you want to increase your chance of turn 3 kills, run Fork or Flame Rift.

***

BlinkX, I think you are selling Magma Jet slightly short. It hurts the chance for a turn 3 kill (incidentally, Incinerate hardly shines there either), but I think it doesn't affect the chance of a turn 4 kill either way. Sometimes you might be a point or two short. At others, it gets you that third land to play another Bolt. Or it finds you another Bolt/Fireblast.

If all you want to do is throw Bolts and Bolt-wannabes at an opponent's face until crispy, Magma Jet inefficient. With potentially great, potentially bad cards such as Flame Rift, Price of Progress, Pyrostatic Pillar and Flamebreak (to name the more popular ones, many more are worthy of consideration. I think I already mentioned by love of Pulse of the Forge), the library manipulation becomes much more relevant. If you run creatures like Mogg fanatic and possibly Keldon Marauders, the benefits are even more tangible. In games 2 and 3, the card will help you find your hate.

You can throw a lot of utility into Burn without compromising your fundamental turn of 4 with a non-neglegible chance to kill turn 3. No amount of streamlining will make turn 3 kills common and turn 4 kills certain. Hence, I prefer to play 'Mono-Red Control' rather than 'In-Your-Face' style Burn. While the difference in play isn't that noticable, an optimised list will look quite different depending on your philosophy.



For the sideboard... naturally that depends heavily on what you expect to go up against. Pyrostatic Pillar needs to go in, otherwise combo decks will have a field day with you.

If Solidarity scares you, Sirocco in addition to the Pillars should wreck them (it's a vey narrow card though... as a reasonable alternative that might be sided in against other decks, there is Red Elemental Blast).

Pithing Needle is a nice cure-all solution to many annoying things, altough most of them can be answered somewhat by throwing fire at them (fry the Jitte-wielder or the mana critters of Survival)

Some artifact destruction won't hurt; Shattering Spree is probably the best although although Meltdown has its perks too.

Worship > your deck, especially since the decks that run it will have untouchables or pro: Red critters. Without dedicated enchantment removal, Anarchy is a clunky but workable solution.

While there are many viable sideboard cards, you won't typically alter your chances too much since giving up a burn spell hurts your efforts more than giving up an expendable spell will hurt other decks. Hence it makes sense to hate out the deck that scares you most with your board. Unless I know what I face, I'd hate High Tide Combo into next week and wing the rest.

[Liitis]

Hello Liitis!

Welcome, and have fun with Legacy. That deck looks solid; Price of Progress is usually maindeckable and that's the only questionable choice. 18 lands is high for Bauble Burn but not excessively so - in short, a good starting point. Forget Landslide. Seriously. If you want to increase your chance of turn 3 kills, run Fork or Flame Rift.



Yeah, I realized about 10 minutes after my post that it actually isn't possible to kill on 3rd turn with landslide in hand.

Maybe I'll cut one land. Should I cut one flamebreak/PoP and add 2 forks?

[Eldariel]

What do I hit? Warchief? One of the 2 Piledrivers? Will he Lackey out a SGC, Ringleader, or Matron the following turn? Do I go for the dome?

I've gotta hit something. I'm at 19, and he's already got 17 on the table...

I'm not arguing about Cave-In, I'm just saying he misplayed. Btw, here the play is to take out his Warchief, suspending the other Rift Bolt, leaving Bolt-mana open in case you need to react. And yea, you had to spend a burn-spell on his creature, but you're still the candidate to win.

[BlinX]

Hello Liitis!

Welcome, and have fun with Legacy. That deck looks solid; Price of Progress is usually maindeckable and that's the only questionable choice. 18 lands is high for Bauble Burn but not excessively so - in short, a good starting point. Forget Landslide. Seriously. If you want to increase your chance of turn 3 kills, run Fork or Flame Rift.

***

BlinkX, I think you are selling Magma Jet slightly short. It hurts the chance for a turn 3 kill (incidentally, Incinerate hardly shines there either), but I think it doesn't affect the chance of a turn 4 kill either way. Sometimes you might be a point or two short. At others, it gets you that third land to play another Bolt. Or it finds you another Bolt/Fireblast.

If all you want to do is throw Bolts and Bolt-wannabes at an opponent's face until crispy, Magma Jet inefficient. With potentially great, potentially bad cards such as Flame Rift, Price of Progress, Pyrostatic Pillar and Flamebreak (to name the more popular ones, many more are worthy of consideration. I think I already mentioned by love of Pulse of the Forge), the library manipulation becomes much more relevant. If you run creatures like Mogg fanatic and possibly Keldon Marauders, the benefits are even more tangible. In games 2 and 3, the card will help you find your hate.

You can throw a lot of utility into Burn without compromising your fundamental turn of 4 with a non-neglegible chance to kill turn 3. No amount of streamlining will make turn 3 kills common and turn 4 kills certain. Hence, I prefer to play 'Mono-Red Control' rather than 'In-Your-Face' style Burn. While the difference in play isn't that noticable, an optimised list will look quite different depending on your philosophy.



For the sideboard... naturally that depends heavily on what you expect to go up against. Pyrostatic Pillar needs to go in, otherwise combo decks will have a field day with you.

If Solidarity scares you, Sirocco in addition to the Pillars should wreck them (it's a vey narrow card though... as a reasonable alternative that might be sided in against other decks, there is Red Elemental Blast).

Pithing Needle is a nice cure-all solution to many annoying things, altough most of them can be answered somewhat by throwing fire at them (fry the Jitte-wielder or the mana critters of Survival)

Some artifact destruction won't hurt; Shattering Spree is probably the best although although Meltdown has its perks too.

Worship > your deck, especially since the decks that run it will have untouchables or pro: Red critters. Without dedicated enchantment removal, Anarchy is a clunky but workable solution.

While there are many viable sideboard cards, you won't typically alter your chances too much since giving up a burn spell hurts your efforts more than giving up an expendable spell will hurt other decks. Hence it makes sense to hate out the deck that scares you most with your board. Unless I know what I face, I'd hate High Tide Combo into next week and wing the rest.

I havent really seen any highly thought out lists that really utilized Magma Jet. Most lists that throw in 4 throw them in because all the posts they read told them to, like the list above by Liitis. It's not a bad list, but like most lists it 4of's all the best burn spells and 3of's flamebreak/cave-in and some metagame burn. There is no tricks or utility, that you were talking about, involved. I know Magma Jet can read 1R deal 2 dmg and throw your 2nd Flamebreak/fireblast ect. on the bottom of your library, but that only happens sometimes. What I'm saying is, I haven't seen the benifits outweigh the consiquences. Without magma jet, and with baubles, I've had a higher consistency of 4th turn kills, because I deal 20 dmg not 18-19.