[Deck] Goyf Burn

God, this deck is terrible. Nevertheless, I will post it, because it wins games. Here is a list for you to bash:

//NAME: Goyf Burn

// Mana
5 Mountain
3 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire

// Creatures
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf

// Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Seal of Fire
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast

// Cyclers
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Street Wraith


General Strategy
This deck is all about Tarmogoyf. The card is stupidly good, and makes even a shitty deck like Burn halfway decent. One of Burn's biggest issues is classically that it runs out of gas very quickly. Tarmogoyf helps shore up that weakness by being huge. He's always at least 3/4 the turn you play him (usually turn 2), and is almost always 4/5 by the turn you're attacking with him. Here's how:

You run at least 2 of almost every card type, all of which go immediately to the yard to feed Tarmogoyf: 8 creatures which can go to the yard at will (Fanatic, Street Wraith). 8 Fetchlands. 8 (free!) artifacts which immediately go to the yard (Baubles). 8 1cc sorceries (Lava Spike, Chain Lightning). 12 instants, 4 of which are 1cc (Bolt, Incinerate, Fireblast). 4 enchantments (4 Seal of Fire).

An example of the ideal first three turns would be: Turn 1 - Fetchland (sac), Seal of Fire, Bauble (cycle), cycle Street Wraith. Turn 2 - Land, Tarmogoyf. Turn 3 - Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, sac Seal of Fire, Tarmogoyf attacks for 5.

Even without the ideal hand, you have 12 free cycling cards which means you're essentially playing a 48 card deck. Turn 2 Tarmogoyf is extremely common, and he's almost always at least 4/5 by the time you start attacking with him. Turn 4 kills are common.


Play Strategy
The deck plays itself. Get as many different types of cards to the graveyard as quickly as possible, then resolve a Tarmogoyf. Clear blockers with burn and ride your Goyfs to victory.

A couple things to note: your Baubles can help you dodge targeted hand destruction like Duress and Therapy, and even non-specific hand destruction like Hymn. Play them as early as possible, but wait to crack them until right before the turn you can play them. For example, if you have a couple Baubles in your opening grip, play them first turn, but wait until your opponent's EOT to crack them - this protects your draws from hand destruction.

Also note that Mishra's Bauble can be used to scrye in conjunction with fetchlands. Look at your top card. If you don't want it, crack a fetch and you get a different draw.

Aside from these few points, the deck plays exactly like classic Burn.


Sideboard Strategy
I'm not gonna lie. I've hardly tested this deck. I've played it enough to know it works, but not enough to offer any specific matchup descriptions. The following advice is pretty theoretical.

1. Run 4 Price of Progress in the board. It beats a lot of decks that Burn has problems with. 3 color board control, Landstill, Loam, and Thresh hate this card. If you're absolutely sure your metagame warrants it, you could run these in the maindeck over Incinerate.

2. Run Shattering Spree. Probably 4 of them. Chalice is obviously one of your worst enemies, so you want outs. Replicate might seem expensive with only 16 lands, but with 12 free cyclers you'll find you typically make every land drop up to turn 3, even if your opening grip only has one land. In addition to wrecking Chalice, Spree answers other problematic artifacts like Jitte and SoFI.

3. Know when to side out Tarmogoyf. Remember that without Tarmogoyf, this deck is straight Burn. The card presents an interesting conundrum to your opponents. Against Burn, creature removal is basically a dead draw. But Tarmogoyf is such a potent threat that he can't be ignored. Decks packing Swords to Plowshares or Edict can't really afford to side them out knowing he's in your deck. That being the case, it's not a terrible idea to side him out game 2 against decks like these. This creates virtual card advantage by leaving a bunch of completely dead cards in their deck.

4. The rest of your sideboard should address the same problems Burn has always had.


Cards Not Included
I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet. Burn threads typically devolve into the same old arguments about the same old questionable card choices. By running 12 cyclers, however, you're able to cut the chaff and run the best of the best. The easiest answer as to why cards like Chain of Plasma and Browbeat don't make the cut is simply because you don't have to. A few others are legitimate concerns though:

Flame Rift
4 damage for 2. Tasty. It's a sorcery though, and that has awful synergy with Baubles. It's also bad for feeding Tarmogoyf. You already have 4 sorceries. You want 4 low-cc instants as well, which is why Incinerate gets the nod over Flame Rift.

Flamebreak
It's always been the weakest card in Burn. People claim it's necessary because of Goblins. That may be true. I suspect that Tarmogoyf largely negates your need for it though. Against Goblins, you can afford to aim your burn at thir critters, and let Tarmogoyf do your damage for you. Alternately, you can reserve your Goyf as a chump blocker, sending all your Burn at their dome. Until the very late game, Goblins simply doesn't have the resources it needs to remove this guy. He will buy you several turns against Goblins. If it turns out you're still not beating Goblins, you can always run Flamebreak or Pyroclasm in the board.

Spark Elemental
He would seem to have good synergy with Tarmogoyf, but you already have 2 sets of creatures to feed him, and let's face it: this is Legacy, and even if you don't have creatures to feed him, your opponent most likely will. I can't think of anything I'd want to replace with him. And he's terrible.

Magma Jet
A fantastic card. However, given that the deck already has 12 ways to improve its draws, I think it's unnecessary. Incinerate's extra point likely makes it the better choice.

Barbarian Ring
Getting Threshold with this deck is ridiculously easy, but you're only running 16 lands total, and you need to support Fireblast. In theory, you could drop a Fireblast and replace a couple Mountains with Barbarian Ring, but I'm not sure you need it.


Conclusion
This deck is very much like classic Burn. As such, it is terrible. However, I suspect that it is less terrible than classic Burn, because it actually has late game reach. It also has more ways to thin the deck and draw into cards it really needs when it needs them (see: Shattering Spree). If you want my advice, don't play Burn. But if you insist on playing Burn, you might as well give this a try.

Since you're already running Seal and Fanatic, why not throw in Rift Bolt so you can run Scab-Clain Mauler? And Kird Ape, say. You know. Creatures to make the deck not burn, because burn is terrible.

Also you can consider Quirion Dryad, as she gets huge also fast.

1st : too weak against combo. The SB should have 4*pyrostatic pillar and 4*CotV to have a chance to struggle.
2nd : 12 slowtrip/cantrip change your deck in a 48 card deck. 16 cards means that you play the equivallent of 20 cards. According to me, it's too much.
3rd : where are the magma jets ?
4th : I don't like playing that many slowtrips. As their name tell it, they are slow...
5th : 4 Fireblast may be too much.

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An example of the ideal first three turns would be: Turn 1 - Fetchland (sac), Seal of Fire, Bauble (cycle), cycle Street Wraith. Turn 2 - Land, Tarmogoyf. Turn 3 - Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, sac Seal of Fire, Tarmogoyf attacks for 5.

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For 6 : land, creature, instant, sorcery, artifact, enchantment.
The problem is that even with that perfect start you can't win on turn 3.

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

Since you're already running Seal and Fanatic, why not throw in Rift Bolt so you can run Scab-Clain Mauler? And Kird Ape, say. You know. Creatures to make the deck not burn, because burn is terrible.

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The problem is, RG Beats is just as terrible, if not worse. It loses to the same hate as Burn does (Chalice, etc.), while also losing to mass removal like Deed, Wrath, and Damnation. Why bother?

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Originally Posted by PhanTom_lt

Also you can consider Quirion Dryad, as she gets huge also fast.

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I did consider it, and decided against it. Unlike Tarmogoyf, she's not big when she comes into play. She's very vulnerable to shit like Fanatic, Incinerator, Funeral Charm, and Darkblast. Also, her inclusion would require you to drop other cards which have inherent synergy with Tarmogoyf, and I can't think of a compelling reason to do so. I completely acknowledge that the decklist in the opening post looks like a total pile, but there is in fact a very careful balance of creatures, instants, sorceries, artifacts and lands which can all immediately go to the yard to feed Tarmogoyf. Removing any of them for cards that don't automatically go to the yard inherently weakens them.

Welcome to The Source, by the way.

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Originally Posted by Maveric78f

1st : too weak against combo. The SB should have 4*pyrostatic pillar and 4*CotV to have a chance to struggle.

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I included no sideboard with this list. If you think you need Pillar for combo, then run it. As for Chalice, how do you set it at anything that doesn't wreck you as badly as it wrecks them? You could set it at 0, maybe, although that shuts down your own Baubles and does nothing against Solidarity. I suspect something like Root Maze would be better, but only testing would tell.

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2nd : 12 slowtrip/cantrip change your deck in a 48 card deck. 16 cards means that you play the equivallent of 20 cards. According to me, it's too much.

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You're going to need to explain why. More cantrips = bigger Tarmogoyfs and better card quality. This has been discussed extensively elsewhere. None of these cycling cards cost anything to cast, so you lose no tempo in that respect. Their synergy with Tarmogoyf and the deckthinning they provide easily make up for potential tempo loss from Baubles.

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3rd : where are the magma jets ?

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Answered in the opening post. Feel free to read it.

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4th : I don't like playing that many slowtrips. As their name tell it, they are slow...

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If you're saying something different than what you said in #2 I'm missing it. Baubles are somewhat slow, but they have strong synergy with the deck overall. Street Wraith isn't slow at all, since it doesn't cost any tempo whatsoever.

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5th : 4 Fireblast may be too much.

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You may be right. The deck may also not need 16 land, considering the curve. I've considered dropping one Mountain and one Fireblast for 2 more cards... perhaps Price of Progress.

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For 6 : land, creature, instant, sorcery, artifact, enchantment.
The problem is that even with that perfect start you can't win on turn 3.

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If you want to get technical, yes I can. Turn 1: Land, Chain Lightning. Turn 2: Land, Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt. Turn 3: Land, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Fireblast. The odds of that are astronomically low, of course. But no lower than normal Burn. What's your point?

How about Storm Entity? With Baubles and even Fireblast, it seems easy to just make it a 4/4 or something and just beat for lots. Should go great with Tarmogoyf as you're enabling their removal anyways.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

How about Storm Entity? With Baubles and even Fireblast, it seems easy to just make it a 4/4 or something and just beat for lots. Should go great with Tarmogoyf as you're enabling their removal anyways.

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Could test him, I guess, but I feel he's of questionable value. You're rarely going to want to play him before turn 3, which is pretty late in the game for you. You typically want to play Baubles on your first turn, in an effort to draw into Tarmogoyf or a second land by turn 2. Saving them just to pump a turn 3 threat seems questionable, since you won't get the cards you draw off them until turn 4. He's decent with a Fireblast, but that really puts all your eggs in one basket. If they have an answer to him and Fireblast didn't kill them you may be in some trouble. It seems like a lot of work to go to for a creature that's likely not going to be bigger than 3/3 on turn 3. If I really wanted more fat in the deck, I think I'd just run Werebear, since turn 3 Threshold is fairly common.

I'm sorry. I did not want to be an asshole. And you ansered as if I were.

1st : Against combo you side out your slowtrips. So yes, you can side in your 4*CotV.
2nd: my apologies I mistyped one word (replace card by land) : 16 lands means that you play the equivallent of 20 lands. According to me, it's too much. And you look like agreeing yourself.
3rd: Magma Jet A fantastic card. However, given that the deck already has 12 ways to improve its draws, I think it's unnecessary. Incinerate's extra point likely makes it the better choice. You thik that your 8 slowtrips are a way to improve your draws ? To me, it's exactly the contrary. Topdecking a slowtrip is an awful loss of tempo.
4th : everybody seems to love unconditionnally the "free" cantrips. I am going to demonstrate you, that they are not free and can be very handicaping.
- Wraith makes you lose several life points. It may be a real problem against this pannel of decks : zoo, gob, burn/mirror, every tendril deck
- baubles are so slow... You lose half a turn every time you activate 1. This is the cost. And I don't believe in it's ability to chose to fetch or not. It happens only if, in your opening hand you have the mishra's bauble, a fetch and a non fetch land.
- all of these are pithingable and stiflable
- baubles are counterable.
- under standstill you can't play the baubles to find a killing card.
- the best argument : you have no visibility on how your start hand is good. I you have 3 of them in hand, you may as well have 3 additionnal lands or 0. It's a pain for the possibility of mulliganing
6th: When I say that it can't kill on turn 3, I mean that this deck may be raced by burn and gob very often.

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Originally Posted by GodzillA

If you want to get technical, yes I can. Turn 1: Land, Chain Lightning. Turn 2: Land, Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt. Turn 3: Land, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Fireblast. The odds of that are astronomically low, of course. But no lower than normal Burn. What's your point?

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Actually the odds of that are a lot lower than in normal burn, considering normal burn plays 16 1cc spells and you play 12. Now, Rift bolt can only be cast on the 1st 2 turns, and not on the 3rd turn, but it still upps the odds.

I don't see how this deck should be that much better than ordinary burn. Consider this likely scenario:

You play Goyf
He plays StP (which you can't do anything against)

Now until you draw a new one all you're sitting with is an ordinary, terrible burn deck.

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Originally Posted by pale moon FTW

I don't see how this deck should be that much better than ordinary burn. Consider this likely scenario:

You play Goyf
He plays StP (which you can't do anything against)

Now until you draw a new one all you're sitting with is an ordinary, terrible burn deck.

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That's brilliant logic. So if I am understanding this correctly, because the opponent *could* have a spell that relegates this deck to the status of ordinary Burn, this deck is essentially not appreciably better than ordinary Burn.

On the contrary, simply playing a card that demands the opponent keep STP in the deck might just be good enough by itself.

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Originally Posted by chmoddity

That's brilliant logic. So if I am understanding this correctly, because the opponent *could* have a spell that relegates this deck to the status of ordinary Burn, this deck is essentially not appreciably better than ordinary Burn.

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Actually, "that spell" only needs be *any* form of removal. There are not that many decks around that are unable to remove an unprotected Tarmogoyf, and therefore reduce this deck to subpar Burn.

Tarmogoyf in Burn seems much like Dark Confidant in Red Death: powerful on its own, but contrary to the deck's game plan.

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Originally Posted by Maveric78f

1st : Against combo you side out your slowtrips. So yes, you can side in your 4*CotV.

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I would never side out the cyclers against combo. I would side out the slower threats like Seal of Fire and Mogg Fanatic. The cyclers draw you into your hate more reliably, and as you pointed out, you're probably going to need them to win.

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2nd: my apologies I mistyped one word (replace card by land) : 16 lands means that you play the equivallent of 20 lands. According to me, it's too much. And you look like agreeing yourself.

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Ah! I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that 12 cyclers too much. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

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You thik that your 8 slowtrips are a way to improve your draws ? To me, it's exactly the contrary. Topdecking a slowtrip is an awful loss of tempo.

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I won't disagree with you there, although they do improve the quality of every other non-cycling draw by allowing you to run only the best threats. It's possible that Magma Jet is the better choice here over Incinerate. I'll test it some.

4th : everybody seems to love unconditionnally the "free" cantrips. I am going to demonstrate you, that they are not free and can be very handicaping.[/quote]
I don't unconditionally love free cantrips. I've never really been in that camp. I don't need the demonstration as to how the can cost tempo. I do understand that. Regardless, I love them here because they have excellent synergy with Tarmogoyf.

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6th: When I say that it can't kill on turn 3, I mean that this deck may be raced by burn and gob very often.

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It's true that Burn can race you. But it is, for all intents and purposes, a mirror match. You can race them too. They will be slightly favored, but not by a lot. As for Goblins, they can only race you when goldfishing. You have plenty of tools to stall their win. Fanatic makes for 2-for-1 trades, and Tarmogoyf is bigger than every threat they have. And unlike normal Burn, you can afford to send your Burn spells at their critter and let the Tarmogoyf do the damage for you. Seriously, try it.

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I don't see how this deck should be that much better than ordinary burn. Consider this likely scenario:

You play Goyf
He plays StP (which you can't do anything against)

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That's never stopped people from playing Quirion Dryad in Burn, and builds with it have had more success at large tournaments than straight Burn. Given that Dryad is vastly inferior to Tarmogoyf, it stands to reason that it's a viable inclusion. Also, everything that chmoddity said.

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Originally Posted by Nihil

Actually, "that spell" only needs be *any* form of removal.

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No. Swords to Plowshares is one of the few. When Tarmogoyf hits play, it's always out of Lightning Bolt, Fanatic, or Incinerator range, and that accounts for the vast majority of non-StP targeted removal in the format. It's vulnerable to stuff like Deed and Wrath, but that requires a huge tempo investment on your opponent's part to deal with one threat on your side of the table.

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There are not that many decks around that are unable to remove an unprotected Tarmogoyf,

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Excluding Swords to Plowshares? There are tons of decks without an answer to a 4/5 or bigger creature on turn 2.

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and therefore reduce this deck to subpar Burn.

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The only subpar card in the deck is Seal of Fire, and perhaps Mogg Fanatic, although the latter can be very important in the Goblins matchup. Aside from that, it is identical to modern Burn decks. It could easily be argued that Burn is by definition subpar, and the inclusion of a threat that actually provides late game reach only makes it less so.

I did not know Quirion Burn had posted results. Do you have a link to that? I tried a search in the SCG database for Quirion Dryad plus Lightning Bolt, but found nothing.

As for your claims that "tons" of decks can't answer a quick fattie... the only ones I see in the LMF are Red Death (and then only because it's backed by burn, otherwise Shade/Negator/Giant+burn could do it) and Faerie Stompy if it gets a slow opening. The others either ignore it and go off, or have suitable removal (even Goblins: when they do not run Jitte or splash W for StP, they usually have Pyrokinesis maindeck, which can easily finish off a Tarmogoyf after it has blocked, or in combination with Fanatic/Incinerator).

So basically, you did these swaps from Rg Sligh into this (simplified for discussion purposes):

Kird Ape = Mishra's Bauble
Grim Lavamancer = Urza's Bauble
Slith Firewalker = Street Wraith

I admit that this looks pretty quick, but is having only 4 Tarmogoyfs enough? I mean, if you're bound to be burning away creatures to clear the way for 'Goyf, then why not play more creatures?

Oh, and Rg Sligh does not lose to Deed/Wrath/Damnation.

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Originally Posted by Nihil

I did not know Quirion Burn had posted results. Do you have a link to that?

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It took second place at Big Arse 2 on July 16, 2005. The tournament report has since been removed from the forums. A more RG Beats-ish version (with Jackal Pups and Kird Apes) also took second place at a 76 person tournament in Germany. Straight Burn has, to my knowledge, not made any Top 8's at tournaments consisting of more than 50 players. I apologize in advance if I am incorrect on this point.

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As for your claims that "tons" of decks can't answer a quick fattie... the only ones I see in the LMF are Red Death (and then only because it's backed by burn, otherwise Shade/Negator/Giant+burn could do it) and Faerie Stompy if it gets a slow opening.

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Tarmogoyf utterly smashes Red Death. If you're calling Negator an answer to a turn 3 4/5 creature, I'm going to have to laugh. Shade won't last more than a turn against it. These are speed bumps, not road blocks. If you add burn into the euqation, then they're making 2 (or more, in the case of Negator) -for-1 trades with you. Good times, I say.

Faerie Stompy? Their answer to a resolved turn 2 4/5 creature is to chump block and lose their creature. If you're suggesting they're going to suggest that they had a "slow start" because they didn't get turn one Efreet followed by turn 2 cast and equip Sword of Fire and Ice, I'm going to have to call bullshit.

You excluded all forms of combo, which don't have answers to early fat. Certainly they can race you, but they can do that against any other form of Burn or Sligh or RG Beats.

When I said that most decks don't have answers to turn 2 fat, I meant real answers, in the form of removal. In other words, Swords to Plowshares, or perhaps Ghastly Demise or Smother. Every other deck's "answer" comes in the form of chump blocking with inferior creatures or hoping they survive long enough to cast mass removal.

Aside from Swords and a couple other barely played exceptions, Tarmogoyf forces your opponents to make bad trades in your favor or to invest massive amounts of tempo in removing him. The card is utterly amazing. Whether or not it's good enough to make an otherwise shitty archetype viable is another argument entirely, and not one I am necessarily making.

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Originally Posted by kicks_422

Oh, and Rg Sligh does not lose to Deed/Wrath/Damnation.

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It has a tougher time against the decks packing them than straight Burn does - Landstill being a prime example. And against something like Landstill, I'll happily side out my Tarmogoyfs in favor of Price of Progress.

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Oh, and Rg Sligh does not lose to Deed/Wrath/Damnation.

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It loses hard and consistently Dirt. So I would estimate that it loses to any version of Trufle Shuffle using Hierarch as well. The sweeper doesn't do the deck in so much as the decks they appear in.

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Aside from Swords and a couple other barely played exceptions, Tarmogoyf forces your opponents to make bad trades in your favor or to invest massive amounts of tempo in removing him. The card is utterly amazing. Whether or not it's good enough to make an otherwise shitty archetype viable is another argument entirely, and not one I am necessarily making.

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More than that, it is bound to spawn a bunch of decks trying to maximize it until people realize that it simply makes Threshold f%^cking unstoppable and everything else is a cheap knock-off.

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Originally Posted by Finn

It loses hard and consistently Dirt. So I would estimate that it loses to any version of Trufle Shuffle using Hierarch as well. The sweeper doesn't do the deck in so much as the decks they appear in.

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Yeah, that was really the point I was trying to make. Incidentally, all of these decks really really hate Price of Progress, which is why you side out Tarmogoyf in these matchups and convert to straight Burn.

Man, a Rancor and some Kird Apes here would be killer.

Zilla: I didn't quite get your justification of why Spark Elemental was a bad choice, there were a lot of "him"s and "he"s, not sure what each one refers to. Can you clear up and elaborate on your reasoning?

Spark Elemental is terrible for many reasons:

1. Now your opponent can say "Hah! I counter your burn spell by playing a creature!"
2. Now your opponent's removal does something (cancel a burn spell).
3. Now your opponent can have a choice of whether to take the damage or not. Punisher mechanic is never a good thing.
4. Unlike real burn, you can't hit a specific creature with it.