[Deck] Goyf Burn

[Zilla]

God, this deck is terrible. Nevertheless, I will post it, because it wins games. Here is a list for you to bash:

//NAME: Goyf Burn

// Mana
5 Mountain
3 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire

// Creatures
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf

// Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Seal of Fire
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast

// Cyclers
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Street Wraith


General Strategy
This deck is all about Tarmogoyf. The card is stupidly good, and makes even a shitty deck like Burn halfway decent. One of Burn's biggest issues is classically that it runs out of gas very quickly. Tarmogoyf helps shore up that weakness by being huge. He's always at least 3/4 the turn you play him (usually turn 2), and is almost always 4/5 by the turn you're attacking with him. Here's how:

You run at least 2 of almost every card type, all of which go immediately to the yard to feed Tarmogoyf: 8 creatures which can go to the yard at will (Fanatic, Street Wraith). 8 Fetchlands. 8 (free!) artifacts which immediately go to the yard (Baubles). 8 1cc sorceries (Lava Spike, Chain Lightning). 12 instants, 4 of which are 1cc (Bolt, Incinerate, Fireblast). 4 enchantments (4 Seal of Fire).

An example of the ideal first three turns would be: Turn 1 - Fetchland (sac), Seal of Fire, Bauble (cycle), cycle Street Wraith. Turn 2 - Land, Tarmogoyf. Turn 3 - Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, sac Seal of Fire, Tarmogoyf attacks for 5.

Even without the ideal hand, you have 12 free cycling cards which means you're essentially playing a 48 card deck. Turn 2 Tarmogoyf is extremely common, and he's almost always at least 4/5 by the time you start attacking with him. Turn 4 kills are common.


Play Strategy
The deck plays itself. Get as many different types of cards to the graveyard as quickly as possible, then resolve a Tarmogoyf. Clear blockers with burn and ride your Goyfs to victory.

A couple things to note: your Baubles can help you dodge targeted hand destruction like Duress and Therapy, and even non-specific hand destruction like Hymn. Play them as early as possible, but wait to crack them until right before the turn you can play them. For example, if you have a couple Baubles in your opening grip, play them first turn, but wait until your opponent's EOT to crack them - this protects your draws from hand destruction.

Also note that Mishra's Bauble can be used to scrye in conjunction with fetchlands. Look at your top card. If you don't want it, crack a fetch and you get a different draw.

Aside from these few points, the deck plays exactly like classic Burn.


Sideboard Strategy
I'm not gonna lie. I've hardly tested this deck. I've played it enough to know it works, but not enough to offer any specific matchup descriptions. The following advice is pretty theoretical.

1. Run 4 Price of Progress in the board. It beats a lot of decks that Burn has problems with. 3 color board control, Landstill, Loam, and Thresh hate this card. If you're absolutely sure your metagame warrants it, you could run these in the maindeck over Incinerate.

2. Run Shattering Spree. Probably 4 of them. Chalice is obviously one of your worst enemies, so you want outs. Replicate might seem expensive with only 16 lands, but with 12 free cyclers you'll find you typically make every land drop up to turn 3, even if your opening grip only has one land. In addition to wrecking Chalice, Spree answers other problematic artifacts like Jitte and SoFI.

3. Know when to side out Tarmogoyf. Remember that without Tarmogoyf, this deck is straight Burn. The card presents an interesting conundrum to your opponents. Against Burn, creature removal is basically a dead draw. But Tarmogoyf is such a potent threat that he can't be ignored. Decks packing Swords to Plowshares or Edict can't really afford to side them out knowing he's in your deck. That being the case, it's not a terrible idea to side him out game 2 against decks like these. This creates virtual card advantage by leaving a bunch of completely dead cards in their deck.

4. The rest of your sideboard should address the same problems Burn has always had.


Cards Not Included
I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet. Burn threads typically devolve into the same old arguments about the same old questionable card choices. By running 12 cyclers, however, you're able to cut the chaff and run the best of the best. The easiest answer as to why cards like Chain of Plasma and Browbeat don't make the cut is simply because you don't have to. A few others are legitimate concerns though:

Flame Rift
4 damage for 2. Tasty. It's a sorcery though, and that has awful synergy with Baubles. It's also bad for feeding Tarmogoyf. You already have 4 sorceries. You want 4 low-cc instants as well, which is why Incinerate gets the nod over Flame Rift.

Flamebreak
It's always been the weakest card in Burn. People claim it's necessary because of Goblins. That may be true. I suspect that Tarmogoyf largely negates your need for it though. Against Goblins, you can afford to aim your burn at thir critters, and let Tarmogoyf do your damage for you. Alternately, you can reserve your Goyf as a chump blocker, sending all your Burn at their dome. Until the very late game, Goblins simply doesn't have the resources it needs to remove this guy. He will buy you several turns against Goblins. If it turns out you're still not beating Goblins, you can always run Flamebreak or Pyroclasm in the board.

Spark Elemental
He would seem to have good synergy with Tarmogoyf, but you already have 2 sets of creatures to feed him, and let's face it: this is Legacy, and even if you don't have creatures to feed him, your opponent most likely will. I can't think of anything I'd want to replace with him. And he's terrible.

Magma Jet
A fantastic card. However, given that the deck already has 12 ways to improve its draws, I think it's unnecessary. Incinerate's extra point likely makes it the better choice.

Barbarian Ring
Getting Threshold with this deck is ridiculously easy, but you're only running 16 lands total, and you need to support Fireblast. In theory, you could drop a Fireblast and replace a couple Mountains with Barbarian Ring, but I'm not sure you need it.


Conclusion
This deck is very much like classic Burn. As such, it is terrible. However, I suspect that it is less terrible than classic Burn, because it actually has late game reach. It also has more ways to thin the deck and draw into cards it really needs when it needs them (see: Shattering Spree). If you want my advice, don't play Burn. But if you insist on playing Burn, you might as well give this a try.