Quote Originally Posted by olystuart View Post
So far the only list I've taken to a tourney (SCG Seattle in April) was a fetchless monored one with 4 Vortex, 4 Flame Rift, and 4 Vexing Devils. I'm doing a little testing here and there but will start doing more when it comes closer to the October Open here. I'm also slowly adding fetchlands to my collection, though with my lack of much budget I'll probably play fetchless again or possibly throw in ~4 fetches and maybe 2 Lavamancers. I'm not sure if that's worth it or not yet - more testing. I am testing a Rw splash-list as well though. In it I do run 4 Boros Charm over Flame Rift, do not run Helix or any other white cards in the main. The main reason is Wear // Tear. I'm not sold on the splash, but I did lose 2 games to Leyline in the Open and it sucks having zero answers to a popular 4-of (in my limited experience, Leylines don't get talked about much because most of the Legacy coverage is of the top tables and Top 8s, and I think more non-elite decks at the mid tables play Leylines). There are other corner cases as well such as hitting Omniscience or Dream Halls in response to Enter the Infinite coming on the stack. In the end my guess is that I'll come to the conclusion of just about every good Burn player out there: mono Red is the place to be. Leylines suck to face but Burn is probably better off just asking: do you have it? Decks that pack Leylines are often decks we can successfully race. I mean do they really want to Mull down to it? If so they might just lose to all of our non-targetting damage (GGs Flame Rift Vortex Devils PoP) before they can draw into their lock or combo anyway. And if we lose 2 games in a long tourney to Leyline or another enchantment, so what? We probably end up losing 2 games to Wasteland if we splash. Boros Charm could save your Vortex in some odd game situation I guess, but in the context of Burn it's just really a worse Flame Rift because it requires the splash and also because it targets. So yeah I think I just talked myself out of white splash while rambling about my testing experience :)
What do ya'll think about running 6 REB/Pyroblast in the 'board? I'm liking #s 5 and 6 better than other options for the moment in testing such as Shusher, Ensnaring Bridge, and Mindbreak Trap. Again, probably wrong, just something I'm testing out as REB is just so crucial in some hard matches.
What decks have you been play testing against? I find Ensnaring Bridge to be a needed 3 slot just for Sneak and Show decks, along with just landing one in some creature match ups can flat out win the game for you, not that I suggest always bringing it in against all creature decks, only certain ones. Mindbreak Trap is a pretty hard card to pass up when Storm can just beat us first turn without it, I like to have 4 around. Shusher is iffy and to me depends on the meta you are expecting, I find it is very good against the counterbalance match-ups and heavy mono blue decks, but Pyroblast/REB is also very good at what it does. It is a hard call, side boarding, I find I spend most of my time on it, rather than the main board.

I have a core that I never seem to change sideboard wise and it evolves these cards:

4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Faerie Macabre


Interestingly enough, even though I am playing a mono-red deck, all those options are not red cards. ;p
If you are seeing heavy use of Leyline, and I know you only said a few loses, I would consider Anarchy. For the time you would just non-target damage and save up until you can land an Anarchy, could be worth while, I know it is a relic of the past when a lot of White decks hated us out.