[Deck] Burn

Burn has done suprising well recently in Non-American tournies. I'll not pretend to know much about the deck nor even hide the fact that I think it is a weaker deck choice, but I will provide you with this information:

The Burn thread is also a Moderator’s nightmare. Previous burn threads have followed the same pattern: they are heavily flooded with junk and then heavily modded. Next, they are flooded with more junk and moderators become frustrated and later apathetic and the thread spirals into a disaster. Be wary of making worthless posts.

In this new thread, please make posts that are well-developed and free of flames. Keep in mind that most issues about burn have been discussed to death. It will be very difficult to come to a consensus about the following issues and these issues will be heavily modded:

• Browbeat
• Lava Dart
• # of Mountains needed to support Fireblast
• Fork

Here, Zilla wants to chime in, too:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GodzillA

This was said at the beginning of the last Burn thread and will be reiterated in this one because it is important. This thread is for discussing Burn. It is not for the discussion of its cousins, RDW and Sligh. While similar, these two decks are idealogically different from Burn, in that one of Burn's core tenets is to avoid the use of any nonland permanents as a way of making many of the opponent's cards dead, hence providing virtual card advantage. This strategy is not inherent in Sligh or RDW, which tend to have a roughly equal balance of nonland permanents and burn spells. Therefore, in order to keep this discussion on track, do not post RDW or Sligh threads here. If you wish to discuss those archetypes, please start seperate threads for them. - Zilla

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With that out of the way, I'll post the lists that have T8ed in November:

Stupid Red Burn by Arek Czubin

Instant [20]

4 Fireblast
1 Fork
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
3 Price of Progress

Sorcery [20]

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

Land [20]

4 Barbarian Ring
16 Mountain


"Sligh" by Ángel Algarate (Really a Burn deck because of its lack of beaters)

Creature [7]

3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Mogg Fanatic

Instant [21]

4 Fireblast
3 Fork
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Price of Progress
3 Sudden Shock

Sorcery [11]

3 Browbeat
3 Chain Lightning
2 Lava Spike
3 Rift Bolt

Artifact [2]
2 Cursed Scroll

Land [19]

4 Bloodstained Mire
13 Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills


Burn by Patrick Collinet (both critters really function as burn spells since they will NOT be sticking around)

Creature [8]

4 Keldon Marauders
4 Spark Elemental

Instant [16]

4 Fireblast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
4 Price of Progress

Sorcery [17]

3 Browbeat
4 Chain Lightning
2 Flamebreak
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt

Land [19]

19 Mountain

Burn by Storaci Saverio Burn

Instant (20)

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fireblast
4 Magma Jet
4 Incinerate
4 Price of Progress

Enchantment (4)

4 Sulfuric Vortex

Sorcery (16)

4 Rift Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Flamebreak
4 Lava Spike

Land (20)
20 Mountain


Burn by Schiano Diego

Creature (4)

4 Mogg Fanatic

Instant (4)

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Fireblast
4 Magma Jet
4 Incinerate
4 Price of Progress

Sorcery (4)

4 Rift Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Flamebreak
4 Lava Spike

Land (20)

2 Barbarian Ring
18 Mountain

Based on those 5 lists, here is a list that plays the most played cards from above:

Suggested Burn

3for1
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike

Utility
4 Magma Jet

Finishers
4 Fireblast
4 Price of Progress

Filler
4 Incinerate
4 ?
4 ?

Land
20 Mountains


And lastly, here is the link to the old Burn thread. Enjoy, and may I suggest that the first problem you solve is what to do about the new rash of Chalice/Trini decks.

Intresting to see Burn Replacing Goyf Sligh in the DTBF. I played burn for like 2 months @ 5 events and dod ok with it, never cracking the top 8 though. Here my latest burn build, runs great as long as you don't draw to much land. I really think this deck Needs cursed Scroll and Sulfuric Vortex to work, with out creature you have no way to deal a steady source of damage.

4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Fireblast
4 Incinerate
4 Price of Progress
4 Magma Jet
3 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Cursed Scroll
2 Flamebreak
2 Blood Moon


4 Wooded Foothills
3 Barbirian Ring
12 Mountain

Wow, burn is a DTW?

Well, I would suggest Flame Rift due to th heav amount of damage it does. If you are in a combo or control heavy enviroment it works wonders and can actually let burn get a 3rd turn win.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

Wow, burn is a DTW?

Well, I would suggest Flame Rift due to th heav amount of damage it does. If you are in a combo or control heavy enviroment it works wonders and can actually let burn get a 3rd turn win.

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I've had a lot of bad run in's with Flame Rift, really hurts when it gets Honerable Passage cast on it. I wiil prob. look at adding it back to the main board though.

I fail to see how this deck can possibly do well with the prevalence of counterbalance in the format. What do you do when your opponent casts it, lose? I suppose in the right metagame it might be viable, but I would be wary about running it for the counterbalance reason alone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nitewolf9

I fail to see how this deck can possibly do well with the prevalence of counterbalance in the format. What do you do when your opponent casts it, lose? I suppose in the right metagame it might be viable, but I would be wary about running it for the counterbalance reason alone.

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Counterbalance isn't as bad as you think, if you go turn 1, Bolt (3 damage), turn 2, Bolt, Bolt (6 Damage @ 11), you opponent goes turn 2 counterbalance. They are now tapped ou and you will force them to use a hard counter of pry that there top card has the right cc. If there to card isn't a 1cc card you can win now, if it is you just have to play around it. Let your hand fill up with burn and respond to top or draw your 2cc, 3cc or 6cc burn spell and hope to burn them out. This is another reason I think Vortex and Cursed Scroll need to be in this deck.

A well tuned (to your meta game) Burn deck can have surprisingly good results.

I'm a fan of the following list:

4 Fanatic

4 Bolts
4 Spikes
4 Chains
4 Rift Bolt
4 Fireblasts

4 Magma Jet
4 Sulfuric Vortex
4 Flamebreak
3 Price of Progress

18 Mountains
3 Barbarian Ring

SB

4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 REBs
8 slots to split between the following cards dependant on your metagame ->
1 REB, 4 Tormod's Crypt, 3 Pyroclasm, 4 Shattering Spree, 4 Pyroblast


I'm really unsure as to what decks Burn legitimately has a good match up against, aside from 43 lands (you're basically combo and you randomly win with Price of Progress) and glacially slow control decks. I'm inclined to say that against Aluren you should be able to "get there," however friendly Phil Stolze also reports having beat 3 Burn decks with his Aluren build (non-recruiter version) at GP Columbus. I'm also inclined to say that you should be able to "get there" against Survival builds, however it will probably require on of 3 things to happen, they get a poor draw, you get a phenominal draw, or you get Vortex to prevent their life gain shenegans with Baloth/Spike Feeder/Primal Command.

It seems like the majority of other decks you'll beat with it will fall into one (or more) of the following categories:

Piloted by a bad player
Opponent gets mana screwed
Sub-optimal decks


Decks you straight up lose to:

Anything with Tendrils of Agony.
Faerie Stompy (Chalice + FoW + Jitte + huge beats, seems bad, not to mention Price of Progress doesn't shine here).


Additionally, it seems like UWb Fish decks would give you nightmares if they pack CounterTop main (they already run Jitte and Thoughtseize + Mage).

I think that we need to see decklists with sideboards personally. There are a lot of very viable issues that have been brought up here (chalice, trinisphere, thorn, counterbalance). I think that a lot of these issues can probably be dealt with in the sideboard. Shatteringspree, Ingot Chewer come to mind as an answer to some of them. If we could post full sideboard lists that'd be good.

Edit: I posted this and then saw the list right above this post with a SB, the other deck lists here could also use them though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nitewolf9

I fail to see how this deck can possibly do well with the prevalence of counterbalance in the format. What do you do when your opponent casts it, lose? I suppose in the right metagame it might be viable, but I would be wary about running it for the counterbalance reason alone.

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Well, not one of its recent T8s happened in America and seemed to happen in lesser known metas. Would it be fair to assume that those metas are less developed? Maybe, but look at one T8:

Top 8:
1. UGWB Threshold
2. Ichorid
3. Innovator Aluren
4. CRET Belcher
5. Burn
6. Burn
7. Vial Goblins with white splash
8. Deadguy

Other than Burn, none of those decks are a real suprise. But here is a very odd T8:

Top 8:
1. CounterSlivers
2. UWR Landstill
3. Berserk Stompy
4. BHWC Landstill
5. Burn
6. UGR Threshold
7. Suicide Black
8. Rec-Sur

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cheddercaveman

I think that we need to see decklists with sideboards personally.

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You CAN see the SBs. Search this thread for the November tournies. Each one has a link to the T8 lists including SB.

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Looking at those 5 T8 lists, I tried to make one mast list based off of the most popular card choices. Each card is ranked out of the possible total of 20 slots (four in each of the five decks).

Typical Great-to-Good Burn
Lightning Bolt - 20
Fireblast - 20
Chain Lightning - 19 (may be an availability issue)
Rift Bolt - 19
Price of Progress - 18
Lava Spike - 18
Magma Jet - 16
Incinerate - 16

Notice a significant drop in numbers here
Lamebreak - 10
Browbeat - 10
Mogg Fanatic - 8
Barbarian Ring - 6
Sulforic Vortex - 4
Keldon Mauroders - 4
Spark ELemental - 4
Fork - 4
Lame Rift - 4
Grim Lavamancer - 3
Sudden Shock - 3
Cursed Scroll - 3

If we were to make a deck based on those numbers we would have the following:

3for1
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike

Utility
4 Magma Jet

Finishers
4 Fireblast
4 Price of Progress

Filler
4 Incinerate
4 ?
4 ?

Land
20 Mountains

I think that those 8 slots in the filler section are really the only ones up for debate. If you want those slots to do the most possible damage with no regard to anything else, then consider Flame Rift. Do you want them to be able to kill critters, then consider Flamebreak. Do you want possible recurring damage? Consider Fanatics or Cursed Scroll. Do you want the burn to be as cheap as possible? Then consider Seal, Shock, or Tarfire. No matter waht you fill those last 8 slots with, I guarantee it will be with something weaker than the already filled 32 slots of burn. :frown: I'll edit the suggested list into the original post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sacearuse

Counterbalance isn't as bad as you think, if you go turn 1, Bolt (3 damage), turn 2, Bolt, Bolt (6 Damage @ 11), you opponent goes turn 2 counterbalance. They are now tapped ou and you will force them to use a hard counter of pry that there top card has the right cc. If there to card isn't a 1cc card you can win now, if it is you just have to play around it. Let your hand fill up with burn and respond to top or draw your 2cc, 3cc or 6cc burn spell and hope to burn them out. This is another reason I think Vortex and Cursed Scroll need to be in this deck.

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This makes it sound like Burn is a turn 3 deck. I am pretty sure it isn't since it would probably have done so much better in Legacy before now if it could consistently win on turn 3. It cannot and often doesn't even win on turn 4. Counterbalance is a beating not to mention your opponent just racing you with good threats like Tarmogoyf.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AnwarA101

This makes it sound like Burn is a turn 3 deck. I am pretty sure it isn't since it would probably have done so much better in Legacy before now if it could consistently win on turn 3. It cannot and often doesn't even win on turn 4. Counterbalance is a beating not to mention your opponent just racing you with good threats like Tarmogoyf.

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Counter balance does hurt, but I'm not gonna scoop to it. I have played through many counterbalance's, once it hits you just have to play around it, if your burn deck is playing right you shoud have your opponent @ 10 or 11 or 12 at the start of turn 3. Price of progress is the card of choice to finish off a player running counterbalance. Point you bolts at there head, make them tap out or make them use their other counter magic, then when the moment is right, Cast a lethal Price of Progress or Fireblast or both. I wasn't saying that you would win on turn 3 but you should be able to have them low enough by turn 3 to play around CB.

I was going to say the same like Anwar. Countertop is usually GG when your opponent still sits on ~10 life. The problem is not only CB but that you can't resolve any spells while they draw whatever they need (Pressure, Mana or Disruption) with the Top.

However, I am not surprised to see Burn here. All decks are less prepared. Red hate got less with the decline of Goblins, Survival decks pack less Hierarch / Baloth or Darkheart Sliver, very good matchups like MUC, Loam or Landstill were in the DTB Forum and the bad matchups like Faerie Stompy did not see much play, just like Combo.

So the only matchup Burn had to fear was Thresh and lists with 4 PoP tuned against Thresh should do great in the Meta.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sacearuse

Counter balance does hurt, but I'm not gonna scoop to it. I have played through many counterbalance's, once it hits you just have to play around it, if your burn deck is playing right you shoud have your opponent @ 10 or 11 or 12 at the start of turn 3. Price of progress is the card of choice to finish off a player running counterbalance. Point you bolts at there head, make them tap out or make them use their other counter magic, then when the moment is right, Cast a lethal Price of Progress or Fireblast or both. I wasn't saying that you would win on turn 3 but you should be able to have them low enough by turn 3 to play around CB.

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Force of Will, Daze, and Counterbalance all create serious problems for the Burn player when they are combined with a swift clock of Tarmogoyfs and other creatures. The draw spells make it so that they find their spells much more reliably than Burn can ever hope to. This matchup has always been poor in my experience for the Burn player. Burn plays like a combo deck that basically only plays 1 threat, the spell that would kill your opponent and they only need to counter that one provided they have enough pressure to kill you in the meantime.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AnwarA101

Force of Will, Daze, and Counterbalance all create serious problems for the Burn player when they are combined with a swift clock of Tarmogoyfs and other creatures. The draw spells make it so that they find their spells much more reliably than Burn can ever hope to. This matchup has always been poor in my experience for the Burn player. Burn plays like a combo deck that basically only plays 1 threat, the spell that would kill your opponent and they only need to counter that one provided they have enough pressure to kill you in the meantime.

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I totally agree with you, I have been looking at this from a Goyf Sligh perspective, not burn, my mistake. I have been playing Goyf Sligh, more burn than aggro, and don't have a problem with counterbalance. Burn will have a lot more trouble with the counter-top match than sligh, thats why I switched decks...my bad.

Its great to see this deck as a DTW. I love bauble burn, but I have to admit all the variants that were top 8ing had no baubles or wraiths:frown:. Does this instantly end the debate of to bauble or not to bauble?

A single Fetch Land in the yard and a Bolt/Brainstorm means that a Flamebreak alone won't kill Tarmogoyfs. With the green git replacing goblin hordes as the primary creature concern, how does this affect us?

Does it make variants that just go for the throat - without sweepers but with inflexible damage marvels like Price of Progress/Flame Rift - more competitive? Alternatively, in efficient rather than flexible decks Cave-In can actually speed up a win, and it's a superior tool against things like Goblin tokens.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AnwarA101

Force of Will, Daze, and Counterbalance all create serious problems for the Burn player when they are combined with a swift clock of Tarmogoyfs and other creatures. The draw spells make it so that they find their spells much more reliably than Burn can ever hope to. This matchup has always been poor in my experience for the Burn player. Burn plays like a combo deck that basically only plays 1 threat, the spell that would kill your opponent and they only need to counter that one provided they have enough pressure to kill you in the meantime.

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I have some experience playing Burn, and I can tell that Burn can fight pretty much well through counters. Burn can race Threshold every game 1, but game 2 becomes impossible with counterbalance, yea, I never won a game with SDT+balance in play.

In a tournament, I was able to fight Scepter+counterspell though. I can't remember if was Bardo's or Mike Flore's arcticle that I read this days, but I remember something like "save yoour spells an then throw them all in his head". That's what I did to finish him. He was able to counter my first 3 spells at EOT. Then in my turn I finished him with a bolt and 2 Fireblasts. That's 3 cards = 11 dmg. Burn can easily race any aggro, aggro/control or control deck. Even through counters.

Game 2 is another history, though. Chill, chalice and counterbalance are a nightmare for you, but counter alone can't do much trouble for you.

My team from South Texas took a mostly burn deck to GenCon 06...Most of us didn't do so well. The guy from my team who originally played it as a pet deck did the best due to familarity with the cards and i believe top 32'ed. I know it says not to include sligh lists, but we feel its more of a burn deck than anything. In fact the people in our meta just refer to it as a burn deck. Maybe some of the thoughts from our list could be adapted to a more burn heavy deck. Our team name was Team Evil, the deck was called Evil Deck Wins.

Creatures
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Jackal Pup
4 Kird Ape
4 Grim Lavamancer

Instants
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Shock
3 Fire // Ice
3 Fireblast

Enchantments
3 Genju of the Spires

Artifacts
3 Isochron Scepter

Land
5 Mountain
3 Taiga
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra Factory

A few things to note about the card choices. I'm sure people have addressed using scepter as a recurring source of damage. The card usually never came down until it could played and activated in the same turn, unless it needed to be dropped early to beat permission of some sort (for example solidarity w/ remands)

Note also that all the burn are instants that can applied to the scepter(with the exception of fireblast). Fire//Ice was also an amazing card. It killed confidants all the time for us, but it might be a bit outclassed in todays metagame. Ice off the scepter was some tastiness as well.

We also noted that genju can be a game breaker. I think the numbers we crunched were something of a 90% chance of victory when connecting with the genju at least once during the game. Realistically 6 damage is 1/3 of a player's life when they crack minimum of 2 fetch lands in a game. It's not burn per se but genju can activated at your convenience as to minimize the risks. It can also be a recurring source of damage because the genju can be recast.

The deck also had incarnations with a White splash for cats, dogs, grunts, and orim's chant (for the combo matchup).

I don't think people are giving baubles + street wraith their fair chance. My friend has been testing a list that runs the full 12 cyclers as well as goyf, the 16 3 for 1s, incinerate, and fireblast and has had some good results. I know that we aren't supposed to talk about lists with creatures, but the deck still functions mostly as a burn deck with goyfs mostly to block other goyfs. The thing is though that if goyf ever connects the game is pretty much over. I'll let him come and talk about it when he has time, but the main point of the post is not to forget the cyclers and/or goyf as well as their ludicrous interaction.

Kronicler

Why in the world would you run Street Wrath and/or Baubles over, oh, I don't know, more burn spells?