[Deck] Burn

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Originally Posted by Choux

What do you guys thinks of bump in the night ?

A deck list like 28 key spells + 19 lands ( with 11 fetchs + 4 badland + 4 mountain ) + 4 bump +4 needle drop + 2 sulfuric vortex +1 top ( good with fetches and allow not to draw lands, and if we got lots of land we can "draw with top" after tutorising the card we wanted )

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I think Bump in the Night builds have been tested already, not to say it is a terrible card but it just caused too many issues with the manabase, making it more fragile to wasteland and making Price of Progress less friendly. Also it should be illegal to be able to flashback a Bump in the Night with a deck with such a fast clock, we should never plan on reaching 6 mana to do so.

I think the idea of a color splash has been on the rise, the only problem is lowering the consistency of Burn to improve a match-up against 1 or 2 decks. Right now mono-red is the way to go, it is very strong and very consistent. Know how to face the key hate-cards in the format and a burn player will do just fine.

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Originally Posted by NeoTech

I think Bump in the Night builds have been tested already, not to say it is a terrible card but it just caused too many issues with the manabase, making it more fragile to wasteland and making Price of Progress less friendly. Also it should be illegal to be able to flashback a Bump in the Night with a deck with such a fast clock, we should never plan on reaching 6 mana to do so.

I think the idea of a color splash has been on the rise, the only problem is lowering the consistency of Burn to improve a match-up against 1 or 2 decks. Right now mono-red is the way to go, it is very strong and very consistent. Know how to face the key hate-cards in the format and a burn player will do just fine.

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Agreed. I also explored the possibility of having another Lightning Bolt by splashing for Bump in the Night, but I found that the benefits were too negligible compared to the risks involved in weakening your mana base and exposing yourself to your own Price of Progress. I would encourage those that are curious to try it out yourselves so that you would have a feel of how it differs from going mono-red.

Cheers,
jares

If I were to splash another color, I would splash Green again, not so much for Grip or Ancient Grudge, I think Shattering Spree is superior to any artifact kill. I would splash it for Tarmogoyf.
Take out Keldon Marauders, which I cant stand.

I noticed this too while playing in Indy, when I took RG Burn.

PLayers do not really waste their waste lands on you. On Barbarian Ring it is a different, B-Ring is a finisher. A Taiga is not, killing our mana lands does nothing, because we do not need a terrible amount of damage. My Taigas never got wasted, and almost every player I played against ran them.

They save their Waste's for the inevitable Price they know they will see, and they save it for the mana use of it. but really if you only ran 2 Taiga's or even 4 if you are more comfortable with it, and one Forest. save a fetch for when you need to cast Goyf, youd be safe from Wasteland.

Im sure there are other green things we could add in the place of Figure too.

just a thought. I cant play test, I do not own Tarmogoyfs.

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Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo

If I were to splash another color, I would splash Green again, not so much for Grip or Ancient Grudge, I think Shattering Spree is superior to any artifact kill. I would splash it for Tarmogoyf.
Take out Keldon Marauders, which I cant stand.

I noticed this too while playing in Indy, when I took RG Burn.

PLayers do not really waste their waste lands on you. On Barbarian Ring it is a different, B-Ring is a finisher. A Taiga is not, killing our mana lands does nothing, because we do not need a terrible amount of damage. My Taigas never got wasted, and almost every player I played against ran them.

They save their Waste's for the inevitable Price they know they will see, and they save it for the mana use of it. but really if you only ran 2 Taiga's or even 4 if you are more comfortable with it, and one Forest. save a fetch for when you need to cast Goyf, youd be safe from Wasteland.

Im sure there are other green things we could add in the place of Figure too.

just a thought. I cant play test, I do not own Tarmogoyfs.

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Based on what you're trying to achieve by splashing for green, it sounds to me like you'd be better-off taking that further and play Zoo. :tongue:

Projecting how an opponent will address the inherent weaknesses of running non-basic lands is ok, but at the end of the day, these vulnerabilities will still exist, and wise players will be able to exploit them correctly. All kinds of splashes have been suggested over the years, including a splash for green using Tarmogoyf (heck, even a splash for BROWN using artifacts! :tongue:), and none of these explorations have resulted in anything convincing so far. I encourage you to test these splashes for yourself - in fact, I expect people to appreciate going mono-red more after testing a splash for themselves.

It's worth noting that, of all the splashes that have been suggested, the most successful one has been the splash for blue, which actually resulted in the creation of an entirely new archetype in U/R Delver.

Cheers,
jares

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Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo

If I were to splash another color, I would splash Green again, not so much for Grip or Ancient Grudge, I think Shattering Spree is superior to any artifact kill. I would splash it for Tarmogoyf.
Take out Keldon Marauders, which I cant stand.

I noticed this too while playing in Indy, when I took RG Burn.

PLayers do not really waste their waste lands on you. On Barbarian Ring it is a different, B-Ring is a finisher. A Taiga is not, killing our mana lands does nothing, because we do not need a terrible amount of damage. My Taigas never got wasted, and almost every player I played against ran them.

They save their Waste's for the inevitable Price they know they will see, and they save it for the mana use of it. but really if you only ran 2 Taiga's or even 4 if you are more comfortable with it, and one Forest. save a fetch for when you need to cast Goyf, youd be safe from Wasteland.

Im sure there are other green things we could add in the place of Figure too.

just a thought. I cant play test, I do not own Tarmogoyfs.

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Try testing on Magic Workstation. The idea is plausible, though I think Goyf may slow us down. Keldon at least pushes damage through, generally not targeted as a great threat people usually let him run his 2-5 damage. But Goyf would be a kill on sight ending in no a damage disadvantage.

My only argument for you on Shattering Spree is Chalice of the Void. Making Smash to Smithereens or Ancient Grudge the better choice. I prefer Smash to Smithereens due to the fact I don't have to get rid of damage for artifact destruction, I get both in one package, and it doesn't target player so it also helps against Leyline of Sanctity.

In my opinion though, we only require a splash for one reason, Reanimator. It is our worst match up by far. Green for Goyf will not help us with that match up, maybe Scavenging Ooze or Beast Within will... But seems like a bit unrealistic option when we don't want tempo loss and the splash would certainly do so.

If I had a choice on a splash I think white would be the one, Path to Exile being the best option against a reanimated Iona or Emperial Archangel... This would also open us up to enchantment removal, which is the number one hate option against burn...

Just my 2 cents.

your right no splash is worth it.
Ive been trying to fit Burn in with Pox for ten years. It just does not work.

Mono-Red is what makes the deck unique and devastating.

I think what makes it weak is we have slots in this deck that are there simply because there is nothing better to add.
like Keldon Marauders. The card is in there because there is simply no other good cards to add.

Reanimator, Maverick, Dredge, Stoneforge, are all filled with great cards, and there is more the players could add, but 60 cards is optimal.

Burn there are only really 45-50 cards that are perfect in Burn counting lands, the other 10-15 slots are just B list cards. Filled with an assortment of Figure of Destiny/Keldon Marauders/Hellspark Elemental/Flame Rift.

on another note, the biggest joke in MTG history is a $25.00 foiled Lava Spike. people should be ashamed of themselves.

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Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo

your right no splash is worth it.
Ive been trying to fit Burn in with Pox for ten years. It just does not work.

Mono-Red is what makes the deck unique and devastating.

I think what makes it weak is we have slots in this deck that are there simply because there is nothing better to add.
like Keldon Marauders. The card is in there because there is simply no other good cards to add.

Reanimator, Maverick, Dredge, Stoneforge, are all filled with great cards, and there is more the players could add, but 60 cards is optimal.

Burn there are only really 45-50 cards that are perfect in Burn counting lands, the other 10-15 slots are just B list cards. Filled with an assortment of Figure of Destiny/Keldon Marauders/Hellspark Elemental/Flame Rift.

on another note, the biggest joke in MTG history is a $25.00 foiled Lava Spike. people should be ashamed of themselves.

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It isn't necessarily that another splash isn't worth it, it's just that another splash will make this an entirely different deck. (Taking out burn for more creatures reflects Zoo, blue turns it into UR Delver as previously mentioned, etc.) I'm not against trying it as I encourage experimentation to evolve a deck (I love RG as much as the next guy but it definitely slows things down, also gofy doesn't get along with lavamancer), but in a red burn deck the issue seems pretty black and white.
I completely agree with everything else (I just laughed when I saw that last statement ...people are crazy). When using cards like Keldon Marauders, it's making the most out of a bad situation. On the brightside, if cards need to be sideboarded in then it's easy to choose which ones to take out.
Other than that I'm still waiting on some cards to round out my deck. Once I get them I'll do some extensive testing and let everyone know how it goes by posting game reports.

Been gone a few days so just a few comments...

Reanimator is bad and we would all love to improve our chances, but unless you want to run Blue for counters or Black for a sac spell, grave hate is your only real option. Sure you can run Phyrexian Metamorph too, but costing 3 while normally running <20 lands in the deck and needing it and the 3 lands by turn 4 or 5 if you lucky is anything but a given. I run my 4 Faerie Macabre and pray. You could add more then 4 cards to the SB for grave hate but how many damage cards do you really want to take out?

No matter how bad Reanimator is it is not an auto-loss in G2/3. Show-n-Tell/Sneak Attack is an absolute loss. I think I have won 3 games out of 50+ against it in testing. Thats games, not matchs. The combo of counters, speed, and 2 different ways to cheat creatures into play, thereby avoiding single card hate, makes it my scoop-and-go-to-lunch-matchup.

For all the talk about various 2-drops, I will stand by my Hellsparks and Magma Jets forever... (Forever in MTG tends to be 4-6 block cycles but some times longer, we are after all still using Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning). Remember, I'm the guy that doesn't play GG in my deck, but I use Hellsparks because I count them as 6 damage. Also they can get 3 damage avoiding counters and counter balance or even a CotV at 2. The get past Leylines and help deal with Bridge from Below. Would they be better if they cost 1 mana or did 4 damage or something sure! But you work with what you got and I certainly wouldn't call them sub-par by any standard. As for Magma Jets? I just get too many games where I was able to get rid of unwanted lands or dig for that 3rd land. Sure, a lot of the time you just see two more spells that you would keep there anyway, but its the times you changed the coming draws that matter.

NeoTech:
Shattering Spree is great for getting past CotV even at 1 because you can activate the replicate ability. That does mean you need 2 lands just to kill 1 art, but it will kill it. But I still prefer Smashed to Smithereens just because I want to deal damage. Maybe a mix in the SB since you can also use it to crush that random Stax, Affinity, MUD deck. Either way, Spree will kill CotV at 1... if you have the extra land.

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

For all the talk about various 2-drops, I will stand by my Hellsparks and Magma Jets forever...

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I've had some slight interest in Magma Jet, but I'm sure that I don't want a full set in the main deck. How many do you run?

Cheers,
jares

4 Magma Jets. A lot of people just see it as 2 damage for 2 mana but I would not undervalue the scrying. Sure, a lot of the time you see 2 spells and you just keep them both and it feels like it was meaningless, but those are just times you didn't need to changing anything. They have smoothed out land draws or allowed me to ensure a burn spell was coming plenty of times.

The lack of card draw and deck manipulation in red has caused me to even consider using Street Wraiths or Manamorphose to "freely" thin the deck but I have never done any real testing with it. I'm fairly sure I recall people testing Street Wraiths back when they were released but that might have been another deck.

It's not worth it. Quoting myself from MTG Salvation:

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You know what doesn't work? Bauble-cards (anything that doesn't cost mana and replaces itself with another card, a'la [CARD]Urza's Bauble[/CARD]) played with cards that Scry. It's kind of like why baubles suck in general: they make mulligans difficult because you don't know what card they represent (i.e. what cards they turn into when you kick off their bauble ability).

Here's the hypothetical I give for mulligans: let's say you open with a land, two bolts, a 2-drop, and three Baubles. Do you keep that hand? You have no way of knowing if you'll be stuck on one land the entire game, or if that's actually playable, e.g. the three cards will be a land and two burn. The hand's probably playable, but the point is that it makes mulling more difficult.

Re: Scry, what if you play Magma Jet and see two Baubles? You've effectively seen nothing, because the Baubles are just hiding the "real" top cards of the deck. Playing Baubles weakens Magma Jet for the same reason that playing Baubles weakens mulliganning: you don't actually know what you're looking at.

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

4 Magma Jets. A lot of people just see it as 2 damage for 2 mana but I would not undervalue the scrying. Sure, a lot of the time you see 2 spells and you just keep them both and it feels like it was meaningless, but those are just times you didn't need to changing anything. They have smoothed out land draws or allowed me to ensure a burn spell was coming plenty of times.

The lack of card draw and deck manipulation in red has caused me to even consider using Street Wraiths or Manamorphose to "freely" thin the deck but I have never done any real testing with it. I'm fairly sure I recall people testing Street Wraiths back when they were released but that might have been another deck.

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I've also tested the "thinning" route some time ago, and I wasn't pleased with the results I got. I'd like to try it out again using Gitaxian Probe alongside the older Street Wraith and Manamorphose, but I don't expect the benefits of this "package" to outweigh the drawbacks of life loss, especially in a mirror match.

Being a fan of "numerical consistency", I personally like the Scry ability too. I found, though, that I don't really want to run a full set of Magma Jet because of the following reasons:

• You don't want to play Magma Jet early, because you become concerned with your top deck when you approach the mid game, and because you want to apply pressure rather than manipulate your deck in the first few turns.
• You don't want to get Magma Jet in multiples, as casting several Magma Jets causes tempo loss because of the obvious mana-damage ratio. Also, the probability of benefiting from casting consecutive Magma Jets to "weed-out" lands is very low (i.e. having three mountains as your top deck), and thus, casting this card in multiples is more likely to impede your damage output rather than increase it (again, given the card's sub-par mana-damage ratio).

I find that running [2x] Magma Jets is a fair balance for making room for some deck manipulation while not diluting the tempo of the deck.

Having said all that, I currently feel that there are better options out there, though, and that there are other more reliable means of increasing the likelihood that you won't run out of gas. The following are some examples:

• Using Fetch Lands to thin the deck and feed Grim Lavamancer
• Using Barbarian Ring to provide virtual card advantage.
• Using cards like Figure of Destiny and Hellspark Elemental that are able to utilize extra lands.
• Using cards like Sulfuric Vortex and Grim Lavamancer that are able to provide a constant source of damage

Most of the examples above have proven to be effective in the current meta, which is why Burn is now in the DTB section.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
jares

Of the 5 cards you list I already run 2 of them. HellSpark and Vortex but 1 can always wish for a 2 drop, 3 damage and draw a card red spell, can't we? I'll even settle for a 3 drop, 3 damage, draw a card spell. I can make that fit the curve.

I had tried a list with 4x Street Wraith, and it made mulligan decisions much harder. Also, the damage burn deals itself plus a 2 life cycler add up very quickly.

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

Of the 5 cards you list I already run 2 of them. HellSpark and Vortex but 1 can always wish for a 2 drop, 3 damage and draw a card red spell, can't we? I'll even settle for a 3 drop, 3 damage, draw a card spell. I can make that fit the curve.

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Yeah, it's always free to have some wishful thinking. Unfortunately, it's very very unlikely for something like that to be printed. If it does happen, though, I'll be very very happy. :laugh:

As of now, the closest thing we got to a damage+draw spell is Needle Drop (unless there's something else that I'm not aware of). :tongue: I haven't honestly tested the card, but I don't expect to get favorable results from it.

Cheers,
jares

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Originally Posted by heroicraptor

I had tried a list with 4x Street Wraith, and it made mulligan decisions much harder. Also, the damage burn deals itself plus a 2 life cycler add up very quickly.

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I came up with the same conclusion when I first tested that build. Just as a point of comparison, Fetch Lands cost just 1 life to activate, and is actually able to bring a permanent into play while specifically thinning the deck of lands (that's three points where Street Wraith would fall short).

At the top of my head, I don't remember ever trying a configuration with Needle Drop and Manamorphose. That might be an interesting line of testing, though I don't expect it to be very effective. You might want to try that too.

Cheers,
jares

In my testing, Street Wraith isn't worth it. But Gitaxian Probe absolutely is and Manamorphose probably is.

The intel Probe provides about your opponent's game plan is absolutely invaluable.

the only places I have found Manamorphose to be truly useful are R/G decks with a lot of RR or GG in the cc, combo, and I use them in my Sligh build with Kiln Fiends. But I never tested them in Burn, largely because I didn't expect a big difference.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

In my testing, Street Wraith isn't worth it. But Gitaxian Probe absolutely is and Manamorphose probably is.

The intel Probe provides about your opponent's game plan is absolutely invaluable.

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I would agree that the information that could be gained by using Gitaxian Probe would be very useful, but the loss of life does have its immediate repercussions (especially in the mirror), not to mention that mulligans become much more difficult to evaluate because of these "thinners" (as previously stated).

If we're talking about the inclusion of these cards in a Tier 1 Burn list, then the wisdom behind this consideration remains to be seen. I would give it a go just for fun though. :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

Guys Ive been testing countryside crusher on my list, since we need topdeck spells mid game, if ever he's online it guarantees us gas. Here's my modified list, Ill be testing my list this coming sat on our weekly legacy tournament and give you guys a report:tongue:

Creatures [13]
3 Countryside Crusher
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Keldon Marauders
4 Goblin Guide

Instants [13]
3 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Price of Progress
2 Magma Jet

Sorceries [15]
4 Chain Lightning
3 Flame Rift
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt

Lands [19]
19 Snow-Covered Mountains