[Deck] Burn

I believe that Sulfuric Vortex goes in the slots that you save for meta choices, as it's a selectively good card (like all meta choices). The same goes for Volcanic Fallout.

I find that playing Grim Lavamancer alongside Hellspark Elemental causes some awkward inconsistencies, much more awkward than the Hellspark Elemental + Barbarian Ring awkwardness :tongue:.

Flame Rift is also the weakest card on my list, but given what's available, there aren't really other alternatives that are clearly "better". Of course, it really still depends on how you plan to construct your deck, and also on the meta that you'll be playing against. Personally, though, I don't mind dealing damage to myself - after all, I AM the Burn player, and the opponent will likely be more concerned about his life total than mine :laugh:. Also, contrary to what might look obvious, the card actually helps when you and your opponent are racing for damage - of course, you play it as your finishing card, otherwise, you're obviously just helping your opponent :tongue:.

Kind Regards,
jares

Has anyone here done some serious testing for Spark Elemental? I've been reconsidering it as a faster Hellspark Elemental, but without the card advantage. I'm currently unsure of what to make of it though, probably because of the lack of testing.

Kind Regards,
jares

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Originally Posted by jares

Has anyone here done some serious testing for Spark Elemental? I've been reconsidering it as a faster Hellspark Elemental, but without the card advantage. I'm currently unsure of what to make of it though, probably because of the lack of testing.

Kind Regards,
jares

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I tested spark elemental jares and all I can say is that it is only good on your first turn with the opponent having no blockers . . . its like a second rate bolt except that it is a creature that is far more worse :frown:, imagine drawing it on your mid game and opponent has a 4/5 goyf or a 7/7 kotr. . . . i rather have a top draw spell (bolt) and cast it in his face:laugh: hmmm....maybe lightning serpent is better but i haven't tested it yet.

Kindly yours,
Pinoy Goblin

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Originally Posted by Pinoy Goblin

I tested spark elemental jares and all I can say is that it is only good on your first turn with the opponent having no blockers . . . its like a second rate bolt except that it is a creature that is far more worse :frown:, imagine drawing it on your mid game and opponent has a 4/5 goyf or a 7/7 kotr. . . . i rather have a top draw spell (bolt) and cast it in his face:laugh: hmmm....maybe lightning serpent is better but i haven't tested it yet.

Kindly yours,
Pinoy Goblin

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well topdecking hellspark or guide would be the same in that situation. i belive jares means spark instead of hellspark not instead of any instant/sorcery damage.
my opinion is no. hellspark is better. i prefer card advantage before speed. not generaly but definitely in this case.

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Originally Posted by tesla

well topdecking hellspark or guide would be the same in that situation. i belive jares means spark instead of hellspark not instead of any instant/sorcery damage.
my opinion is no. hellspark is better. i prefer card advantage before speed. not generaly but definitely in this case.

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thanks bro for the correction:smile: well on the other hand given the situation topdecking guide is much more better cause you have the option not to attack it and use it as a blocker :smile: and I agree with you 101% that hellspark is better than spark because of its unearth ability :smile:

Kindly yours,
Pinoy Goblin

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Originally Posted by Pinoy Goblin

thanks bro for the correction:smile: well on the other hand given the situation topdecking guide is much more better cause you have the option not to attack it and use it as a blocker :smile: and I agree with you 101% that hellspark is better than spark because of its unearth ability :smile:

Kindly yours,
Pinoy Goblin

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I guess that, given that Burn does have the weakness of running out of gas from time to time, Hellspark Elemental does provide the needed card advantage. I'm still having a problem with the idea of dealing an unguaranteed 3 damage for 2 mana, though, so I'll need to do some testing to see for myself.

Kind Regards,
jares

Burn again got represented (twice) in the Top 16 of a tournament:

• http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...-04&city=Tampa

I find that both lists have something interesting in them - one having a lot of creatures built-in, and one having Sulfuric Vortex in the main deck.

It seems that Hellspark Elemental is fitting well in the current meta.

Cheers,
jares

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Originally Posted by Pinoy Goblin

thanks bro for the correction:smile: well on the other hand given the situation topdecking guide is much more better cause you have the option not to attack it and use it as a blocker :smile: and I agree with you 101% that hellspark is better than spark because of its unearth ability :smile:

Kindly yours,
Pinoy Goblin

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If you really "preferred card advantage" you wouldn't even run Hellspark Elemental, let alone your burn spells. This is not the correct criteria for selecting cards for this deck.

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Originally Posted by Malakai

If you really "preferred card advantage" you wouldn't even run Hellspark Elemental, let alone your burn spells. This is not the correct criteria for selecting cards for this deck.

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What would be the correct criteria then?

Regards,
jares

I am not really accepting of decks that we have a hard time beating game one.
Reanimator being one, Dredge being another, and storm decks being the others.

Reanimator and storm are almost impossible first game. I dont care that we have a 3 turn clock, because that is only in goldfish mode against no disruption, it is also not common 4th turn is common 5th turn is almost 85%. we have no disruption for Reanimator, or storm game one. and there clock for wining or gaining overwhelming board advantage is turn 2, turn 3 definitely unless they just get screwed.

Dredge isnt easy, its not even 50-50. It is possible game one, and even though it is not easy, it also really is not hard.

there has to be a way to add something to stop these decks, that wont hinder our chemistry within the deck.

I have been thinking of main decking Mcabre, there is enough in the field that it could effect. Lands, decks with snapcaster, all the dredge-storm-reanimator decks. Welder MUD, maverick(slightly)-or any deck using Knight of the Reliquary shells.

I know I have slots I could get rid of.

I just hate accepting that these decks are tough matchups. giving a deck that is hard to beat a one game lead, with hopes that a few sideboard cards can get you two in a row is ridiculousness.

Mcabre is card that can win you the game, I would hate to top deck it, but it also wont lose you a game against every other deck that we can handle easily, it also wont make those matchups harder at all. But it would give you game one against the decks we cant handle. then adding more sideboard in, only betters the odds.

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Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo

I am not really accepting of decks that we have a hard time beating game one.
Reanimator being one, Dredge being another, and storm decks being the others.

Reanimator and storm are almost impossible first game. I dont care that we have a 3 turn clock, because that is only in goldfish mode against no disruption, it is also not common 4th turn is common 5th turn is almost 85%. we have no disruption for Reanimator, or storm game one. and there clock for wining or gaining overwhelming board advantage is turn 2, turn 3 definitely unless they just get screwed.

Dredge isnt easy, its not even 50-50. It is possible game one, and even though it is not easy, it also really is not hard.

there has to be a way to add something to stop these decks, that wont hinder our chemistry within the deck.

I have been thinking of main decking Mcabre, there is enough in the field that it could effect. Lands, decks with snapcaster, all the dredge-storm-reanimator decks. Welder MUD, maverick(slightly)-or any deck using Knight of the Reliquary shells.

I know I have slots I could get rid of.

I just hate accepting that these decks are tough matchups. giving a deck that is hard to beat a one game lead, with hopes that a few sideboard cards can get you two in a row is ridiculousness.

Mcabre is card that can win you the game, I would hate to top deck it, but it also wont lose you a game against every other deck that we can handle easily, it also wont make those matchups harder at all. But it would give you game one against the decks we cant handle. then adding more sideboard in, only betters the odds.

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I am sorry, sir, but that's just really how it works. Burn is at a disadvantage versus the decks you've mentioned, just as other decks are also at a disadvantage versus Burn. One Deck can't have it all, because otherwise, everyone would be using THAT DECK.

Burn is one of the most finely-tuned hyper-linear decks that have been established ever since this game came to be. It's designed to be a deck of "questions" not a deck of "answers", if you know what I mean. If you were to insist on forcing an "answer" into the main deck, just keep in mind that the trade-off would be an increased degree of inconsistency to a deck that has historically had problems with "running out of gas". I currently don't have the numbers to illustrate this, but I'm sure that you already get my drift.

I like that you're trying your best to not accept this state of probable defeat against certain decks. Unfortunately, this is an issue that is built into the nature of the deck, and at the end of the day, we will always have the sideboard to help us with our weaknesses, and it will probably be worth our while to instead explore how we can develop our sideboards to help the deck be more resilient.

Kind Regards,
jares

p.s. there's one more thing that we can do - pray that something insane gets printed :tongue:.

A friend of mine wanted to play Burn at an upcoming Starcity Open but was having problems with tuning it. For the last 5 weeks we have played nothing but Burn against other people. I played over 500 matches (2/3) myself so I thought I would share a few things.

We started with 1 of the decks that did well at Starcity Tampa which my friend was convinced was the way to go (minus the SB):
Creatures
3 Figure of Destiny
4 Goblin Guide
3 Hellspark Elemental
3 Keldon Marauders

Instants
4 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress

Sorceries
4 Chain Lightning
4 Flame Rift
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt

Lands
17 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring

This build seems fairly typical of what most people at lest on this board seem to be playing. After playing about 150 games this was my conclusion...

Problems:
1) CotV at 1 on turn 1 is game over and any time after turn 1 depends on much later it came.
I don't think this takes any explaining.

2) Enough creatures to make their removal worth having but not enough creatures to be dangerous. And they slow you down.

The problem is GG and FoD. They will give people reasons to keep in removal but cost you more cards to make them useful. This is why: Burn player, on the play, T1, moutain -> GG -> swing -> 2 damage -> end turn. 1 Mana, 1 card, 2 damage. Now if the opponent doesn't play anything you're ok but if he plays any creature you have a choice to make, burn it or not. If you burn it you have now committed an additional card and its damage to clearing the way for the GG to hit 2 more damage, a total of 4 now, but if you just used 2 bolts you would have hit the opponent for 6 at this point. If you don't burn it and instead hit the player for 3 you are resigning to fact that your creature is on his own and might never hit again, which isn't bad, but you are still 1 damage behind where you would be if you used a bolt to begin with. Given as most (not all) people on this thread are focused on killing as fast as possible the GG/FoD conflict with this plan. They require the game go on longer for you to have a payoff.

3) The deck, at its absolute fastest "god draw opening hand" is not fast enough to race and consistently beat combo, re-animator, dredge, or anything gaining life.

If you are playing 1st and don't have to mull, you can deal at 18 damage by your 3rd turn using 9 cards, 19 damage if you sac 2 mountains to a fireblast. This is a game you will win, but we all know it doesn't happen like that often enough for you to count on it. Added to that, your bad match-ups can go off as soon as turn 1 and almost always by turn 4. You can't call yourself a world class sprinter if you your best time in the 40 is 2 seconds slower then the guy with a broken leg. Point being, you can't race with the big boys; don't try.

4) Counter/Top kills you much like CotV and any deck running counters and/or discard (because the end effect is the same, loss of card without dealing damage) also screws you.

I decided to try a burn deck the way I would play it. Mind you, I don't build anything with such a narrow focus. As someone above said "burn doesn't have answers", well, it does have some the way I play it.

This is what I tested for about 350ish games:
Creatures
4 Hellspark Elemental

Instants
3 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Javelin
4 Magma Jet
3 Price of Progress
3 Volcanic Fallout
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Dead/Gone

Sorceries
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
3 Flamebreak

Enchantment
3 Sulfuric Vortex

Lands
19 Mountain

Sideboard:
2 Smash to Smithereens
3 Lava Spike
2 Anarchy
4 Faerie Macabre
2 Runeflare Trap
2 Flame Javelin

I built a Burn deck that allows me to answer most of the things that cased me problems in the 1st stage of testing.

Vortex: stops life gain and deals ongoing damage.

Flamebreak/Volcanic: If you are going to hit yourself with more damage while hitting your opponent you might as well clear the field of most of the creatures too. Since my game plan allows for the expectation that the game goes beyond turn 4 I need ways to clear creatures. These also double as ways to hit someone hiding behind a Leyline.

Smash to Smithereens: Not only is there Jitt and Batterskull but yu will almost always find something to hit with it including Tops (even if it doesn't hit, if you have no other target in game 1 you can set them back a draw), CotV, Trinisphere just to name a few.

Dead/Gone: I don't like Lava Spike, I would sooner run Shock MD then it. Dead/Gone is really in for the Gone side to get rid of a Goyf or other large beast and by myself a turn. This was 1 of the last changes I made to the deck and never really settled on if I liked it or not but it did prove useful a few time and Dead is almost always useful to kill something early on.

Lava Spike: yes, I know, above I said I don't like them, and I don't, but against combo where your only choice is to go as fast as possible what else are you going to use?

Flame Javelin: Due to the reliance on Counterbalance and soft counters other then FoW it is almost uncounterable in today's Legacy as long as you play around Daze like effects. And it hits for 4.

Magma Jet: Since I don't have to win by turn 4 this card is amazing. Avoid unwanted lands and makes sure you get to that 3rd land. You have no card draw so use what you can.

I went from a 65% win rate with the starting deck to 75% with the later version. Now part of it will have to do with just playing a deck more in line with my style of play. And I'm not happy with a 75% win rate and some card slots such as Dead/Gone and Lava Spike I am just not happy with but the adjustments did make a huge improvement in some match-up.

Various Aggro decks like Zoo, Goblins, Faeries, Merfolk all fold to sweepers

I had winning records of 65-70% against typical hard match-ups like Dredge, GWx Mav, Nic Fit, and Delver/Fish like RU decks. Blade Control (in various forms) is about 61% when I looked at my records but didn't seem that bad as I was playing. RUG Tempo also gave a lower then I expected rate of 55% which also didn't feel

At 1 point I had a winning record against Reanimator but I drum that up to luck finding Macabre in the end its all about finding that SB card.

The ABSOLUTE WORST match up was by far Show-n-Tell/Sneak Attack with a 0% win rate and I played 12 matches. There is no 1 card that you can side in and help, it really needs 2 at 4 of each and you can't fit that into the SB or the deck. If I was at a tourney and I see my opponent play Show-n-Tell in game 1 I'ld say nice game and get some lunch before the next round.

Anyway, by adjusting the game plan and my effective clock I was able to increase my overall win rate from 68% at 153 matches to 81% after 357 matches (not counting the 1st 153 matches). If I was going to play at a big tourney this is not the deck I would play but I thought you all might find this info useful... If my friend does well this weekend I'll let you know.

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

This is what I tested for about 350ish games:
Creatures
4 Hellspark Elemental

Instants
3 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Javelin
4 Magma Jet
3 Price of Progress
3 Volcanic Fallout
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Dead/Gone

Sorceries
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
3 Flamebreak

Enchantment
3 Sulfuric Vortex

Lands
19 Mountain

Sideboard:
2 Smash to Smithereens
3 Lava Spike
2 Anarchy
4 Faerie Macabre
2 Runeflare Trap
2 Flame Javelin

Anyway, by adjusting the game plan and my effective clock I was able to increase my overall win rate from 68% at 153 matches to 81% after 357 matches (not counting the 1st 153 matches). If I was going to play at a big tourney this is not the deck I would play but I thought you all might find this info useful... If my friend does well this weekend I'll let you know.

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Obviously, this build is VERY different from the Burn decks that we've become accustomed to. It wants to be played in a more tempo-like pace, rather than in the usual rush that cards like Lava Spike and Goblin Guide would certainly prefer. I've noted before that "Burn is a deck of questions", but this build certainly has gone out of its way to abandon that philosophy and provide main deck answers for the archetype's weaknesses.

I'll probably play around with this build to see for myself. It's an interesting take on totally altering the game plan of Burn, though it can definitely be improved further at this point (e.g. We can probably do better than Dead // Gone).

If you would have the chance to test this in a big tourney, do let us know how it goes.

Kind Regards,
jares

what about searing blaze? not seen in the lists, and I think it's an excellent response to T1 Hierarch, mom, Llanowar, dryad arbor ... or T2 Stoneforge (into batterskull) or any other blocker to clear the path to our GG.
I use it, and I have won several games because of it
the landfall not think it is a problem, and this one card can answer a threat and continue our strategy

(sorry for my google translate english)

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Originally Posted by Anfylion

what about searing blaze? not seen in the lists, and I think it's an excellent response to T1 Hierarch, mom, Llanowar, dryad arbor ... or T2 Stoneforge (into batterskull) or any other blocker to clear the path to our GG.
I use it, and I have won several games because of it
the landfall not think it is a problem, and this one card can answer a threat and continue our strategy

(sorry for my google translate english)

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I've also used Searing Blaze before, and I personally have been pleased with it. Unfortunately, though, the effectiveness of the card decreases when fetch lands and not used, and the builds that have been successful recently have not been using fetch lands.

If you guys have not noticed, this archetype is now in the Decks to Beat section!

Congrats to all that have helped push this deck to the top!

Cheers,
jares

Ya, I just noticed that.
Also noticed Show-n-Tell/Sneak Attack Deck is there too. Which as I mentioned is the 1 deck I can find 0 answer for.

I long ago considered Searing Blaze but since I decided to go without Fetchlands so they got axed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

Ya, I just noticed that.
Also noticed Show-n-Tell/Sneak Attack Deck is there too. Which as I mentioned is the 1 deck I can find 0 answer for.

I long ago considered Searing Blaze but since I decided to go without Fetchlands so they got axed.

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I'm curious about whether or not this is the first time for Burn to be in the DTB section... :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

It has been listed as a Deck to Watch back when we had DTB and DTW but I didn't see anywhere it was listed as a DTB.

I used to try and burn out problem creatures. I realized that doing this, just makes it harder to win.
a few posts ago, someone made mention of turn one Goblin Guide, If the opponent plays a spell on their first turn you have a decision.
what decision?
what creatures can an opponent play that would be problematic to a Guide, on their first turn?
not to mention the only decision you need to make if it is a problematic creature is when to block. I just let my opponent swing away until I need to start worrying about blocking.
attacking with a guide turn one, I only need to cast 6 burn spells to win. Easy. almost guaranteed. (not really, but, really)

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Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo

I used to try and burn out problem creatures. I realized that doing this, just makes it harder to win.

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That is correct. Wasting valuable gas on a creature that does not impede your ability to burn an opponent is definitely a step backward. In terms of dealing damage traditionally (in contrast to pulling-off a combo), Burn is one of the fastest, and being sidetracked by addressing a seemingly problematic creature is something to be avoided.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo

a few posts ago, someone made mention of turn one Goblin Guide, If the opponent plays a spell on their first turn you have a decision.
what decision?
what creatures can an opponent play that would be problematic to a Guide, on their first turn?
not to mention the only decision you need to make if it is a problematic creature is when to block. I just let my opponent swing away until I need to start worrying about blocking.
attacking with a guide turn one, I only need to cast 6 burn spells to win. Easy. almost guaranteed. (not really, but, really)

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I think that what was meant by that is that Goblin Guide is an investment that may need to be "supported" by clearing the way for it, and also one that activates your opponent's supposedly dead cards in the form of removal.

I find that, as much as Burn wants to abuse the concept of "virtual card advantage" by running as few permanents as possible, you just cannot say no to what Goblin Guide is able to provide - speed, reliable damage, a warm body that can be useful for several reasons, "peeking", and all for the low low cost of one mana.

Cheers,
jares