[Deck] Burn

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Manamorphose is an automatic 4 of in this deck, end of discussion. Comparing it to Baubles is just silly. Baubles make you wait a turn and thus make horrible top decks, manamorphose doesn't. It really has zero drawbacks except for very very rarely mana burning you for two, but that's extremely rare.

Street Wraith is an auto include as well imo unless you plan to play the mirror matchup a lot.

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That's a pretty bold statement. I don't see anything as an auto include in this deck outside of lightning bolt, chain lightning, magma jet, fireblast ,and mountains.

I have a problem with Manamorphose because it doesn't solve the decks problems and it incurs a lot of problems in mulligan desicions. It's an "eh" topdeck as you filter two mana through and cantrip into.... well, you hope a burn spell. If you end up hitting a land then the card is pretty damned bad. If you do hit a burn spell, then yay, but you could still end up taking 1 or 2 life on the chin if it draws a 1 mana spell or a fireblast. If i have two in my opening hand, well... I suppose on turn two I can chain the two together and that wouldn't be a horrible play, but I'd rather play something substantial there. The problem that I have with the card is that it's a cantrip that adds 2 mana to your mana pool. If this was a red cantrip that said "Draw a card. Untap up to two lands." then I could lean closer to the possibility of an autoinclude. This card is closest to Street Wraith in that it does allow you to run a smaller deck, at the risk of damage and drawing dead off the cantrip. I feel the card is seriously overhyped, as in most situations i'd rather have Magma Jet or Incinerate.

i admit it chaining the goyf (won't work) and would be a misplace, but yeah the deck wins turn 4 with great frequency so yeah a 4/5 goyf alone won't suck that much.

if he plays a goyf each turn his, and the goyf is always a 4/5 it would look like this

turn 1- pass
turn 2- 4/5 goyf
turn 3- 4 damage, 2nd 4/5 goyf
turn 4- 12 total damage, 3rd 4/5 goyf (then i win...)

so i don't think creatures won't be that much of a problem.. the real problems are only the counters, discard and fast combo decks, :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Cire

problems are only the counters, discard and fast combo decks, :laugh:

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You know that one of the most prevalent decks in the format that is playing those 4/5 goyfs also play cards like Counterbalance and Force of Will, right?

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Originally Posted by Cire

...so i don't think creatures won't be that much of a problem.. the real problems are only the counters, discard and fast combo decks, :laugh:

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Have you ever played this deck, in any event? Next to counterbalance and combo heavy creature based decks are a major problem. People aren't going to e dropping just 1 Goyf there will be Nimble Mogesse, Mishra's Factory's, and other early game beaters backing him up. I do agree that Manamorphose does require some testing, but it's not as good as some of you make it out to be...

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Manamorphose is an automatic 4 of in this deck, end of discussion. Comparing it to Baubles is just silly. Baubles make you wait a turn and thus make horrible top decks, manamorphose doesn't. It really has zero drawbacks except for very very rarely mana burning you for two, but that's extremely rare.

Street Wraith is an auto include as well imo unless you plan to play the mirror matchup a lot.

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Why would you play something like Manamorphose (which is utterly terrible in burn), over something like Overmaster?

Because I like to play good cards. :tongue:

Seriously though, until we have 40 Lightning Bolt equivalents that we can run, cards like Manamorphose and Street Wraith are absolutely vital in making sure we CAN win on turn four consistently.

This was like when I said Rift Bolt is an autoinclude back when it was first previewed. Very few people thought the card was worth running back then. Or when I suggested Keldon Marauders.

People will come around to Manamorphose. I'm sure of it.

While Manamorphose, Overmaster, and Mishra's Bauble all serve essentially the same purpose, I think it's more of a metagame choice on which to run, I would personally use the Mishra's Bauble because, though they are a terrible top deck, they're better early on, and Speed is definetly of the essence, and the fact that its free, plus, if you get an instant or a Street Wraith from the draw, since it's :0: to play you can do stuff right there.

I changed my list sightly, i took out the Keldon Marauders for Fireblast's, and a PoP for some Flame rifts so it looks like this now

12 Mountains
4 Barbarian Ring

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt

4 Fireblast
2 Price of progress
2 Flame Rift

4 Manamorphose
4 Needle Drop
4 Street wraith
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble

As i said before I'm finding the deck consistent at turn 4 goldfish and all the draw effects aren't as troublesome as some of you make them out to be.

Playing fillers of varying degrees of suckitude is probably not the right idea for Burn. The right version for a given meta won't need filler because everything is useful anyway.

Price of Progress can be brutal. Personally, I value having a sweeper (Cave-In is nice if Empty the Warrens surfaces often). I like how Pulse of the Forge avoids scooping to utterly pathetic Tendrils chains (you don't even need it in hand). The disposable creatures are nice for racing real creature decks. Some of these will shine, as will other cards... I just need to know which. If I have no clue how to abuse my metagame, I play something more powerful than Burn.

I wrote that earlier about Manamorphose :

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It's the worst topdeck in the world for burn...It won't make the cut for me. I don't know why people instist upon putting new, irrelevent cards in their decks...Besides, what are you going to cut for it?

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What I think to otherwise be the worst 4 in the deck : Incinerate, Flame Rift, lands (in high curve burn, like the ones using Flamebreak or Earthquake), etc.

As for the topdeck issue, that's a point against it indeed but :
- you get about one chance in three to lose 2 life and one in six to lose 1 life, i.e. in top deck mode, this card costs you 0.66 life on average. Let's call this 1 life.
- if you play burn correctly and aren't losing anyway, you should rarely be in topdeck mode. Playing well, it shouldn't happen more than once every 10 games. Let's say we're not good and call it 7.5. That's a 13% chance of entering topdeck mode.
- the chances of topdecking it are about 1/15 per turn, i.e. a bit less than 1 in 5 over 3 turns. If you have to spend 3 turns in topdeck mode, you will most likely lose anyway. Considering 1 or 2 turns spent in topdeck mode in a game without winning or losing gives about 20%.

In short, the chances of topdecking Manamorphose are about 2.6%, which will cost you about 1 life on average. Let's say this 1 life is relevant in, what, 1 game in 20 ? That means the issue you are talking about is relevant in about 0.13% of cases, i.e. once every 770 games.

I didn't compensate for the fact you dig 3 cards instead of 2 over 2 turns of topdeck mode and neither for the chances of a double topdeck but that gives enough of an idea of order of magnitude of the relevance of the topdeck issue.

My guess is that this is well balanced by the improvement of quality in the deck by putting Manamorphose in but I'll grant you I haven't run the calculation for that.

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A mono-red burn list won't use this at ALL. 19 Mountains, 4 creatures, 34 burn spells (3-5 are board-clearers), 3 punisher spells. When are you going to play it? At what point in time does this come in "handy"? All it will do is replace itself, and if you have an empty hand, it almost can't even do that without you running the risk of burning for 2.k

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It's not a matter of it coming in "handy". It's a matter of making the deck as a whole better.
Why do you play only 60 cards in your deck and not 80 ? There are plenty of "handy" spells you could cram in, aren't there ?

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If there is a fault in that line of reasoning, I'm quite ready to listen to it but none of the people who have said it was wrong have actually been able to tell me where this reasoning fails.
I do completely accept the issue about mulliganing decision but I'm ready to make harder mulliganing decisions if it improves the quality of the deck.
So, right now, I do think Manamorphose should be a staple for 2-colour burn (borderline Sligh) at least.

I personally have been running a variant of burn edging on sligh for a while and certainly love Manamorphose :
[deck]Lands : 20
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Plateau
9 Mountain

Creatures : 7
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Keldon Marauders

Spells : 33
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
2 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Helix
4 Price of Progress
4 Earthquake
4 Manamorphose
3 Fireblast

Side : 15
4 Engineered Explosives
4 Orim's Chant
2 Pyroblast
2 REB
3 Pithing Needle[/deck]


I still don't have a miracle-solution for Threshold (even Shusher probably won't be enough) but it's not unwinable, but I beat any aggro senselessly and get a fair play against combo (particularly EtW) over a complete match.

I recently got back into playing Legacy, and the deck I am playing is of course burn, as that is the only deck I happen to have access to. Below is the list that I have:

LANDS:
2 Barbarian Ring
18 Mountain

CREATURES:
4 Mogg Fanatic

WIN CONDITIONS:
4 Fireblast
3 Price of Progress

THREE FOR ONES:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Chain Lightning

OTHER SPELLS:
4 Magma Jet
4 Flamebreak
3 Incinerate
2 Browbeat

SIDEBOARD:
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Shattering Spree
3 Everlasting Torment
3 Anarchy
3 Tormod's Crypt

Cards that I still need for the above deck are as follows:

2 Magma Jet [using 1 Incinerate & 1 Keldon Marauders at the moment)
1 Flamebreak [using 1 Firespout at the moment]
4 Chain Lightning [using 4 Shock at the moment]

I have a trade going on that will get me the 4 Chain Lightning, in english form no less. So as long as that trade goes through, I should have the Chain Lightnings by the end of the month! Its just the Magma Jets and Flamebreak that are giving me the most heartache.

Overmaster looks like a nice card. It would definately help Fireblasts get through and it replaces its self.What would you suggest taking out for it?

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Originally Posted by The Legacy Weapon

Overmaster looks like a nice card. It would definitely help Fireblasts get through and it replaces its self.What would you suggest taking out for it?

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After some testing I too agree that overmaster is worth running, in the board. What to remove really depends on what list you are running, if you run baubles, remove a set of them, same goes for wraith's and Manamorphose.

I haven't posted a list in a while so here is what I am currently running:

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
3 Price of Progress
3 Fireblast
3 Magma Jet
3 Flame Rift
3 Flamebreak
2 Shard Volley
4 Street Wraith
4 Manamorphose

3 Barbarian Ring
16 Mountain

Sideboard:
4 Overmaster
4 Pyroblast
3 Shattering Spree
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Price of Progress

Please keep in mind that sideboards are very meta specific.

Overmaster costs 1 mana and has no effect on most decks.
The only matchups where it does something, this something is unlikely to be better than a Bolt, unless you indeed have Fireblast to play : statistically, being in a relevant matchup + having both Overmaster and Fireblast in hand + the opponent having a counter ready at that time is a very small percentage, certainly not worth paying 1 mana for.
1 mana is a lot for burn. It can delay you by a whole turn.
I'd much rather play Needle Drop and I don't feel that Needle Drop is worth it, although I keep an open mind on it.

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Originally Posted by Puzzle

Overmaster costs 1 mana and has no effect on most decks.
The only matchups where it does something, this something is unlikely to be better than a Bolt, unless you indeed have Fireblast to play : statistically, being in a relevant matchup + having both Overmaster and Fireblast in hand + the opponent having a counter ready at that time is a very small percentage, certainly not worth paying 1 mana for.
1 mana is a lot for burn. It can delay you by a whole turn.
I'd much rather play Needle Drop and I don't feel that Needle Drop is worth it, although I keep an open mind on it.

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:confused: ... Have you ever played burn at a large Legacy event (30+ people)? Counter magic is one of this decks biggest problems, counterbalance by it self can cost you the game. Overmaster isn't there to help your Bolts resolve, its there for your finishers, Fireblast and Price of Progress. Overmaster is a nice compliment to Pyroblast/REB, its gives you that little edge that is sometimes needed. Yes I know your opponent can just counter the Overmaster with counterbalance, but it makes them work just a little harder to counter the next spell.

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Originally Posted by Sacearuse

:confused: ... Have you ever played burn at a large Legacy event (30+ people)? Counter magic is one of this decks biggest problems, counterbalance by it self can cost you the game. Overmaster isn't there to help your Bolts resolve, its there for your finishers, Fireblast and Price of Progress. Overmaster is a nice compliment to Pyroblast/REB, its gives you that little edge that is sometimes needed. Yes I know your opponent can just counter the Overmaster with counterbalance, but it makes them work just a little harder to counter the next spell.

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In big tournaments, I don't maindeck cards that are relevant only against 1/6 to 1/3 of the field and don't even affect these matchups all the time, let alone win them on their own.
Overmaster can delay you by a whole turn and make you lose more often than it will make you win.

As for Counterbalance, and the risk of getting countered in general, you've answered your own point. I'd just add that Pyroblast and REB do the job much better by being able to counter the CB before it hits play. Would you side Overmaster on top of 8 blasts ?
Also bear in mind in that respect that to Overmaster + PoP, you need 3 mana, at which point a CB player has manipulation in place anyway. And you don't want to Fireblast too early, leading to the same issue.

In short :
- how often will this one mana cost you the game by delaying the kill ?
- how often will Overmaster win you the game over the meta you meet ?


Less confused ?

I don't really like Overmaster, I much prefer my REB's and Pyroblasts (or I will like the Pyroblasts once I get some)... still, I think that the card has some merit, just not enough to merit a slot in the deck.

Puzzle, your point about the CB player having manipulation in play by the time you hit 3 mana confuses me. For 3 mana to be relevant you obv. want to force through a PoP, which means the opponent needs to have AT LEAST 2 non-basics in play, which will never happen before turn 2. PoP is a card that you want to play late anyway, so turn 3 isn't that bad.

Personally, against Countertop I want to play the long game. I board in Grips and wait for an opportunity, then combo off on them over the course of their end step and my turn with 3-5 lands in play. Overmaster does nothing for this strategy, so I wouldn't play it.

A lot of people don't realize how they need to play to beat Countertop. You either need to burn them down to 6 or less so that you can force through the requisite spells to kill them, or you need to do what I already said and overwhelm them late game.

In this format I believe that Grip is necessary for burn to be competitive. It is your only sure-fire out against counterbalance.

Why exactly should overmaster matter?

Yes, the deck is slowed down noticably by countermagic. However, no individual spell is crucial. The only thing it does is forcing an opponent to counter a 'Bolt-standin' rather than a 4-damage spelld; not worth spending one mana on. The only time it might actually be useful is when protecting a Price of Progress.
The effect simply isn't worth spending mana on; the effect against Counterbalance is fairly marginal as well (as opposed to REB).

This has probably been discussed over and again, so if someone gives me a link to the thread/posts I'll delete this one.

What about making a transformational (can you say that?) sideboard to switch between burn and sligh between games?
If you maindeck mogg fanatic and keldon marauders (which is an OK choice for burn), and put some grim lavamancer, magus of the moon and/or slith firewalker in the SB, this can make a reasonably good sligh deck. The objective being to take your opponent by suprise and to dodge the removed anti-creatures.
Could this be viable?