[Primer/Deck] Burn

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Originally Posted by Brael

The main issue I've found so far comes down to the reliability of Fireblast. If you have a double Fireblast hand one is dead until you hit 5 mana if you're using a Ring.

I don't think it's that important to hit 3 lands on turn 3 either, whenever I build my decks I assume my mana curve goes 1-2-2-3, so that I hit my third land drop on turn 4, which also means that I'm assuming I have 9 mana total to work with in a standard game (of course flood/screw happens which you should prepare for as well). Anyways, I assume my opponent has 24 life to work with and I'm on a mulligan to 6. I built a spreadsheet for this a long time ago to help with card choices now I'm trying the simulation approach. For what it's worth, with the spreadsheet approach what I'm looking for in the deck with those constraints is 148 damage in the deck (creatures make this a little murky), in less than 52 total mana.

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Yeah, it's true that multi-Fireblast hands get even worse if you replace any Mountains with BRings. I've generally found 18 Mountains enough; casts the 1st Fireblast with extreme reliability but the second one is far worse; maybe 50-70% in the first 5 cards? That's an unfortunate cost on Fireblast but I find both pieces are valuable enough that I'd be willing to eat up the inconsistency (especially since Fireblast makes it very easy to use Barb Ring, putting 3 cards in the grave). I believe you get more consistency elsewhere and I believe that makes up for the inconsistency of double FB. The games where you draw 1 or less Fireblasts over the first 5-6 turns form the majority, after all (drawing 2+ Fireblasts by turn 6 is like 20%).

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Originally Posted by Sidneyious

I mull if I have dbl fireblast, I want a 2 land hand 90% of the time.

I'll chance 3-4 land hands more often than not but I run this list.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/legacy-burn-12-09-12-1/

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Almost always mulliganing if you have an extra Fireblast isn't the right move. You should remove a Fireblast from the hand and evaluate if that's better than the average hand from that point. A second Fireblast is basically -1 card in hand, but if your 7 with double fireblast is stronger than the average 6 it's still a keep.

It has been years since I ran a burn deck and I have a couple questions about current incarnations.

1st off, my build from years back was burn heavy with the only creature being Spark Elemental. How often are topdecked creatures dead cards when you are trying to go for the last few points?

2nd. No Browbeat? Is it just too slow in todays meta?

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Originally Posted by Brael

Almost always mulliganing if you have an extra Fireblast isn't the right move. You should remove a Fireblast from the hand and evaluate if that's better than the average hand from that point. A second Fireblast is basically -1 card in hand, but if your 7 with double fireblast is stronger than the average 6 it's still a keep.

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I have 1 barbarian ring and I'm trying to make a old burn list that Sullivan ran because I hate sleigh and most burn lists are actually sleigh decks.

I can see the point for EtGR but it's at best IMO a SB card for combo and tempo.

I love dbl fireblast if I ha e the lands and other "bolts" to keep the mojo going.

Yes GG can deal 2+ damage over turns but it's just a shock afaic.

GLM is mostly creature removal if the games goes too long.

I want to win by t4 and most of my opponents are non basic so to me pop is the worse card for my list.

Yes I run rift but it don't deal as much damage to me as EtGR does.

If I can replace GLM with a better 1cmc burn spell that's not shock I'd do it.

If we get another "bolt" GLM is gone, GG is still the best 1cmc creature a burn deck can use but I'd want a second new 1 cmc "bolt".

I dont like creatures when I just want to " bolt".
The more turns we go the greater chance we lose.

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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster

It has been years since I ran a burn deck and I have a couple questions about current incarnations.

1st off, my build from years back was burn heavy with the only creature being Spark Elemental. How often are topdecked creatures dead cards when you are trying to go for the last few points?

2nd. No Browbeat? Is it just too slow in todays meta?

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Good creatures are rarely dead, Swiftspear, Guide, and Eidolon are all pretty close to guaranteed damage on a topdeck. Lavamancer and Vexing Devil are the worst cards to topdeck on turn 4 or later but Top is pretty good at making sure that doesn't happen.

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Originally Posted by Sidneyious

I have 1 barbarian ring and I'm trying to make a old burn list that Sullivan ran because I hate sleigh and most burn lists are actually sleigh decks.

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The only problem is that the interactive decks with creatures have been proving themselves to be more powerful. Perhaps I'll have more data on this point than what we can get off of high placing tournament lists and anecdotal evidence once my simulator is finished but for now I'll just state that Goblin Guide, Eidolon, Swiftspear, Top, and several others exist are better positioned than Rift Bolt and Lava Spike. The decks old strategy of being non interactive just isn't what wins games anymore.

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Originally Posted by Brael

The only problem is that the interactive decks with creatures have been proving themselves to be more powerful. Perhaps I'll have more data on this point than what we can get off of high placing tournament lists and anecdotal evidence once my simulator is finished but for now I'll just state that Goblin Guide, Eidolon, Swiftspear, Top, and several others exist are better positioned than Rift Bolt and Lava Spike. The decks old strategy of being non interactive just isn't what wins games anymore.

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I do realize creatures are a thing now but I'd add top over a creature because draw is a problem for us because we have nothing really good. If we draw lands then yes faithless looting is good but for "creature less" burn we don't want to many lands.

I'm so curious about your findings because I want to be non interactive.

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Originally Posted by Sidneyious

I'm so curious about your findings because I want to be non interactive.

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My findings won't be able to answer that question all that well because it's a goldfish, there will inevitably be some correlation between the cards that represent the most damage offering the quickest clock, but in a goldfish that's creatures 100% of the time because a T1 Goblin Guide represents 8 damage (though I am reducing that to a somewhat more accurate level).

My feelings on being non interactive just come from playing the deck. Being non interactive just isn't where you want to be right now.

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Originally Posted by Brael

My feelings on being non interactive just come from playing the deck. Being non interactive just isn't where you want to be right now.

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If it is enemy creatures that make you want to be interactive, why not simply maindeck Flamebreak?

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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster

If it is enemy creatures that make you want to be interactive, why not simply maindeck Flamebreak?

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Because:

1) It's not good enough to kill most creatures in Legacy.
2) The creatures it is good enough to kill are the ones we typically run.
3) It costs 3 to cast, and is a sorcery.
4) It is bad against decks without creatures.
5) Even if all 4 of those, through some major miracle, happen to not coincide, I'd rather cast Sulfuric Vortex.

Most of the time gg nets me 4 damage and is a blocker after that.

I do feel I have to many lands in my deck but reliability for vortex and fireblast I could drop maybe 1-2 lands.

I want to run 3 barbarian rings buy its no bueno with fireblast so maybe just 2 is the right pick.

What does a stock burn list look like these days?

Assume a very fair meta, with lots of creatures.. So I suppose Swiftspear is not as good

Swiftspear really shines in metas where Miracles and combo decks are present, and fair decks are harder to come by. At least, that's what I discovered when I played awhile back.

Base lists:
4 GG
4 Eidolon

4 Bolt
4 Chain
4 Spike
3 Searing effects
4 Price of Progress
4 Rift Bolt
2 Vortex
3 Fireblast

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Originally Posted by Krimson Viper

Swiftspear really shines in metas where Miracles and combo decks are present, and fair decks are harder to come by. At least, that's what I discovered when I played awhile back.

Base lists:
4 GG
4 Eidolon

4 Bolt
4 Chain
4 Spike
3 Searing effects
4 Price of Progress
4 Rift Bolt
2 Vortex
3 Fireblast

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I hope whoever won the CFB 1K posts today. I left as the finals was starting but Burn was OTP vs Gobs. I assume Burn won it.

Finals was Burn v. Goblins? Nice. If I went, I might have made it to top eight as well.

Ha. Who am I kidding? I'm super rusty.

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Originally Posted by Krimson Viper

Swiftspear really shines in metas where Miracles and combo decks are present, and fair decks are harder to come by.

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Haven't tested Swiftspear enough to make a claim for the Miracles side, although it feels like having another creature that gets hit by Terminus, Swords to Plowshares, and Counterbalance isn't the greatest card to have in that match-up. It might just be useful as Goblin Guide 5-8, as another creature to go underneath the Counterbalance soft-lock/hard-lock.

I feel that in metagames where Swiftspear would shine in, would typically be an environment in which Burn is a pretty mediocre metagame choice. If it's the best deck you have for that metagame, then still run it, although it is advised to switch to UR Delver if you still want to play an aggressive deck with Price of Progress+Swiftspear.

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Originally Posted by Jaytron

What does a stock burn list look like these days?

Assume a very fair meta, with lots of creatures.. So I suppose Swiftspear is not as good

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My list of core cards is as follows:
8 Fetchlands
8 Mountain
4 Goblin Guide
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Price of Progress
4 Fireblast
2 Sulfuric Vortex

This leaves 9 spots for metagame choices, of which 2-4 are lands.

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Originally Posted by Speedbump

Haven't tested Swiftspear enough to make a claim for the Miracles side, although it feels like having another creature that gets hit by Terminus, Swords to Plowshares, and Counterbalance isn't the greatest card to have in that match-up. It might just be useful as Goblin Guide 5-8, as another creature to go underneath the Counterbalance soft-lock/hard-lock.

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Swiftspear is really, really good in most matchups. It does a very similar amount of damage as Goblin Guide. I find that against Miracles the first thing I take out is my Lavamancer and my Searings. After that I start trimming on other creatures, a mid-late game Swiftspear though is usually just bait to get a 1 on top (ideally their top) in order to clear the way to get something else through Counterbalance. Post board things get a lot better since you can load up on uncounterable spells and Miracles doesn't usually have the clock to punish you for bringing in a bunch of 3's and 4's.

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Originally Posted by Speedbump

Haven't tested Swiftspear enough to make a claim for the Miracles side, although it feels like having another creature that gets hit by Terminus, Swords to Plowshares, and Counterbalance isn't the greatest card to have in that match-up. It might just be useful as Goblin Guide 5-8, as another creature to go underneath the Counterbalance soft-lock/hard-lock.

I feel that in metagames where Swiftspear would shine in, would typically be an environment in which Burn is a pretty mediocre metagame choice. If it's the best deck you have for that metagame, then still run it, although it is advised to switch to UR Delver if you still want to play an aggressive deck with Price of Progress+Swiftspear.

My list of core cards is as follows:
8 Fetchlands
8 Mountain
4 Goblin Guide
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Price of Progress
4 Fireblast
2 Sulfuric Vortex

This leaves 9 spots for metagame choices, of which 2-4 are lands.

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When I was playing regularly, I used to chat with a lot of Miracles players and they do actually fear repetitive damage like our creatures. It forces them to find Terminus in time before our spells start to finish the game. Get it under a counterbalance lock and it's something they'll have to deal with, especially if Spear can grow even through counters. I've had games against Miracles where i wouldn't have closed it out if it weren't for the creature damage.

However, I don't particularly like Spear because I feel like it takes away from our fair match ups and I want to keep that match up right where it is.

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Originally Posted by Krimson Viper

However, I don't particularly like Spear because I feel like it takes away from our fair match ups and I want to keep that match up right where it is.

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I find spear to be good. Because of prowess it has a better shot at swinging into an opponents board than Guide does.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...Pw9ec3qUUN1SOk

That's my Burn sheet as it currently stands, if you want to play with some numbers yourself on the Google sheet go file/download, download as the spreadsheet of your choice, then go into your program and play with it (you'll actually have to save it, open with will open in read only mode). What I've found from this, at least with the configuration I'm using right now is that 4 Swiftspears are worth about 1 point of additional damage in your deck than 4 Goblin Guides are.

The basic instructions if you want to mess with it, the third tab (results) contains some cells to adjust deck numbers. At the top is your opponents total life that game, how many cards you'll have to play with, how much mana, and some other stuff. Some of it is an educated guess on my part rather than fully calculated like the extra cards seen per game field (cell A2). The deck requirements are determined by your average damage/card based on the total in your deck, and how many cards you need to hit the opponents life.

If you want to get into how some of that stuff is derived use either the recurring or one shot pages depending on the card. The one shot stuff is pretty straight forward aside from Atarka's Command which is using a conservative but subjective assumption of a 3 damage mode, then an additional 1 damage half the time. Recurring damage is a bit more complex, at the top are the average number of combat phases a creature will be live for depending on the turn it's cast for both normal and haste. Below is the creatures themselves based on the chance you will see that card (and presumably cast it) on that turn in the game. Goblin Guide is .7/.1/.1/.1 here because in the 10 card cycle this is tuned for your initial 7 will comprise 70% of the cards you see that game, so 70% of the time you draw a Guide it will be on T1, 10% of the time on T2, and so on. These chances are multiplied by the max damage the creature will deal if cast on that turn, times the number of rounds it's live for. So Goblin Guide has a power of 2 (cell F11), is hasted (G11), and will be good for 2 rounds (B2), so 2*2=4 damage when seen on T1, 3 damage on T2, 1.5 damage on T3, 1 damage on T4 (meaning half the time he can swing for 2, half he can't), which averages to Guide being worth 3.35 damage in your deck.

If anyone plays with it and has any other questions feel free to ask. I've been using some variation of this sheet for a couple years now and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. Still working on the simulation approach though and will hopefully be done soon which I intend to have replace this since it's a bit less subjective.

The most interesting part I find in it, is that 4 creatures beat the 3:1 ratio of Lightning Bolt: Goblin Guide, Monastery Swiftspear, Eidolon of the Great Revel, and Vexing Devil, but there doesn't seem to be enough slots to run 4 of each even in something more sligh oriented.

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Originally Posted by Brael

Swiftspear is really, really good in most matchups. It does a very similar amount of damage as Goblin Guide. I find that against Miracles the first thing I take out is my Lavamancer and my Searings. After that I start trimming on other creatures, a mid-late game Swiftspear though is usually just bait to get a 1 on top (ideally their top) in order to clear the way to get something else through Counterbalance. Post board things get a lot better since you can load up on uncounterable spells and Miracles doesn't usually have the clock to punish you for bringing in a bunch of 3's and 4's.

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I actually quite like Grim Lavamancer in the Miracles match-up, probably as much if not more-so on Turn 1 than Goblin Guide. It's a repeatable source of damage, and makes good use of the otherwise dead cards in your graveyard. The only cards that require Burn to have conditions set in the graveyard are Grim Lavamancer (have 2+ cards in GY), Exquisite Firecraft (2+ Burn spells in GY), and Barbarian Ring (7+ cards in GY), so there's no real cost to keeping Grim Lavamancer in on that ground.

I feel like the match-ups where Swiftspear really shines in is the uninteractive match-ups, where you need to dome by Turn 3. It seems pretty weak against decks like Shardless BUG, Eldrazi, D&T, or any other deck where their creatures are designed to be better than yours.

Regarding your spreadsheet: Looks very good! The only contentions I have is with the valuing of cards like Price of Progress and Grim Lavamancer (where the damage values assigned to these seem lower than experienced in gameplay), compared to Vexing Devil and Pyrostatic Pillar. (where the damage values assigned to these seem higher than experienced in gameplay) The main problem might just be that it's quite hard to accurately measure the value of damage these cards deal out, as they change values quite consistently based on the board state, and what deck you're playing against.

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Originally Posted by Krimson Viper

When I was playing regularly, I used to chat with a lot of Miracles players and they do actually fear repetitive damage like our creatures. It forces them to find Terminus in time before our spells start to finish the game. Get it under a counterbalance lock and it's something they'll have to deal with, especially if Spear can grow even through counters. I've had games against Miracles where i wouldn't have closed it out if it weren't for the creature damage.

However, I don't particularly like Spear because I feel like it takes away from our fair match ups and I want to keep that match up right where it is.

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The last part has been the reason I haven't been on the Swiftspear plan at all. Considering my metagame was full of Shardless BUG, D&T, Delver variants, Miracles, and a smattering of A+B Combo decks and Elves, it wasn't worth throwing the good match-ups to the wayside.