Right, fault line's not strictly better than any of the options that have been mentioned, but it's at least worth mentioning. Instant speed has the chance of netting you extra CA. It can also bait out a counter on turn 3 trying to kill a non-threshed mongoose? Seems pretty bad. Burn usually just wants the most mana-efficient option available, which usually means flamebreak.Originally Posted by kirbysdl
Any further thoughts on Boseiju? I really like the idea of being counter-proof, but a lot of our spells are colorless-less, including Flamebreak, Fireblast, and our 16 bolts. Being able to force through Price of Progress and Sulfuric Vortex would be extremely relevant against control/Landstill/etc. though, and we've still got a fair amount of power in our remaining spells (Flame Rift, FotBH, Browbeat, etc. all hit hard). I'm thinking 2-3 in the side might be good, but it's still a heavily metagame-dependent decision at best.
Well your half right, Boseiju only works on instant and Sorcery spells. It nice to have but only helps with POP and Magma Jet in my build. I play it as a 1 of in the Main, it ups my land count to 19 but comes can come in handy if you draw it. I may add a second to the side board but would need to make room for it.
As far as board sweepers go, I will stick with Flamebreak and Pyroclasm. Clasm is a turn faster and comes in handy against ETW combo and Goblins.
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
I think Boseju is a bit build dependent. I run FotBH instead of Sulfuric Vortex and I would say that makes a big difference in the decision making process. Still, even without that it makes Incinerate, Magma Jet, PoP, and Flame Rift through counters. Add FotBH, and it becomes a no-brainer. I was even contemplating running Earthquake due to it being able to take advantage, but it is not worth it. I just run two in SB, and side out Barbarian Rings when Boseju is relevant.
Fork is starting to appear in peoples list's again. I realize we are not encouraged to discuss Fork, but I feel its only really useful in certain situations. This card screams situational in a deck that needs every piece to pull its own weight and do its business. Every now and again, you will do fun fireblast tricks. However, overall there are better spells to use. Plus it really sucks that control gets a two for one when they counter your fireblast in response to forking it. Fireblast is countered, Fork has no targets and just fizzles... That blows.
Which is why when faced with control (read anything with blue in it), I would never use the Fork to copy the Fireblast. I instead would use the Fork to copy the counterspell they use to counter the Fireblast. Thereby allowing Fireblast to get through, or forcing the opponent to use a second counterspell to counter either the fork, or the Fireblast. In otherwords, I would force the opponent to either let me get the Fireblast through, or force them to 2 for 2 me... possibly even 3 for 2 me if they used FoW in there at any point!
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever... He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe... and... he's wonderful."
FotBH!? Seriously, what does this mean, I checked the last page and didn't find anything that resembled this card. FotBH = Fact of the Bad Headache? Please use the card name at least once before abbreviating it so I (and presumably everybody else) can understand your posts.
EDIT: I found it 2 pages back. FotBH = Flames of the Blood Hand. My point still remains.
in a normal situation i play chalice=0 only versus high tide chalice 1 but this mu imostly won under chalice 1
Please use your shift key. Your posts will be easier to read. Verbal warning issued.
-PR
Isn't Burn the deck in Legacy that is hosed most by Chalice=1? I would not against any deck put it on 1.
Edit: Maybe in the mirror, but then still I wouldn't board it in.
Oh sorry about that. Yeah FotBh is Flames of the Blood Hand. In the future I will use the card name first.
Back to Fork, yeah you can fork counters but I generally don't find it worth it myself. Thats why we have 4 Red elemental Blasts in the board. If you have too many red "counters" you will still find yourself behind in damage. Still, like you said Fork is versatile so its a tough decision.
What's the general consensus for land distribution for a non-bauble deck? I started at 18 Mountains for:
4x 0-cost (Fireblast)
20x 1-cost (Rift Bolt)
12x 2-cost
4x 3-cost
2x X-spells (Earthquake)
I'm thinking of switching out one Mountain for two Barbarian Rings, replacing the 2 Earthquakes with one Shard Volley/FotBH/etc., and switching out the Mogg Fanatics for Keldon Marauders.
4x 0-cost (Fireblast)
16x 1-cost (Rift Bolt)
16x 2-cost
5x 3-cost
I really hope Barbarian Ring doesn't kick me in the ass too hard, since I'm not going to get Threshold easily in a non-bauble build. Does anyone play Rings without cantrips? How many, and how is it working for you? Thanks!
EDIT: The first post mentions that this sort of thing can cause endless debates while never reaching a conclusion, but it seems that burn runs a surprisingly delicate mana base for all its simplicity, so some discussion is probably justified.
Aside: If I use Boseiju to cast Incinerate while Chalice of the Void at 2 is in play, my Incinerate goes through, right? Or does it depend on the order in which Boseiju and Chalice enter play?
Last edited by Curby; 01-23-2008 at 03:18 AM.
did a bit of testing
20 tests of turn kills
turn 3: 2
turn 4 8
turn 5: 9
turn 6+: 1
I've been trying to decide a couple of cards in my burn deck (browbeat, flamerift and needle drop mostly), and so have been goldfishing the deck a LOT (have a couple hours on train each day to waste anyway).
I would like to pick up some tips on how to do the actualy goldfishing better (ie the recording of it, and what i should be watching for). How should i count a turn 1 Mogg? as 1 damage or as 2-3?
Should i be recording how much damage i've done each turn or just keep track of which turn i hit 20 damage on?
Is it important to note when i have which creatures on the table, or when i played a Flamebreak?
How much should i count Price of Progress for? right now my deck doesnt actualy have them, (mostly because its easier to goldfish without them), but eventualy i will put them in, and i dont know how to count them.
At what turn should i just consider the goldfish a loss? turn 6? 7?
Should I consider 18/19 damage to the dome a win (assume a fetch or something)? or should I keep only counting the 20+ damage runs as wins.
So far most offten I get to 20 sure damage (that's without counting mogg/marauder attack damage) on turn 5, with a few on turn 4, but for the most part 20 damage on turn 4 is only doable if i count the creature attack damage (a turn 2 marauder attacking turn 3 "should hit" right?)
So far my conclusions are that Browbeat is a beating, with easily over 50 goldfishes i have yet to encounter the situation where getting 3 cards is worse then the 5 damage, and i dont think i'd mind a strait 5 for 3 spell. Granted, i only have 2 of them in the deck right now, but will take it up to 4 as soon as i get the other 2 in the mail and then do more testing to make sure the extras dont make it a worse card.
FlameRift is great as a 4 for 2, but its a little hard to test its (4 damage to self) side in goldfishing, so for now my conclusion for it is "goldfishing sais keep as 4 of, testing against decks needed to see if self damage is too much".
If you like 4damagefor2mana spells, Needle drop is for you. Almost litteraly a better version of FlameRift. With any of the 16 3for1s in your hand it becomes a 4for2 with almost no downside (not knowing what you'll draw to replace it with) and with an upside (going through your deck faster). Think about it: Flame rift = 1 card+2 mana+4 life spent to do 4 damage. Bolt+Needle drop= 1 card+2 mana spent to do 4 damage... Yes needle is NOT a 1drop, its realy a 2 or 3 drop depending on you're using to meet its requirement, and you cant use it if you're stuck on 1 land (unless you have mogg or riftbolt), but so far i'm loving it anyway.
At some point i will have to start testing against actual decks to see much Mogg Fanatic is a poor burn spell vs needed blocker, how many Flamebreaks i need (depends on # of creature decks), how much i like Flames of hte Blood Hand (depends on abundance of life gain), and much i'm missing by ignoring Magma Jet. But for now, using the wasted time on the train by goldfishing this thing seems like a good idea.
5 damage for 3 mana is good (sure beats FotBH). 3 cards for 3 mana is good (sure beats Magma Jet's Scry). The problem is not being able to control which you get. That's why in general I prefer Magma Jet because while it doesn't do anything as well as Browbeat could, at least you can plan with it.
But wait! Giving them a choice is only a problem in the late game, as most opponents will just take the 5 and hope to race you unless they're under 6 life. So then it becomes a problem of when we can cast Browbeat... at the earliest on turn 3 barring Moxen and Spirit Guides. When we're hoping to win on turn 4-5, that's late enough for it to matter as giving them a choice near the fundamental turn is much worse than giving them a choice when they're still feeling comfortable at 14-17 life.
In other words, Browbeat should fit in much better in accelerated decks, but it is quite a gamble in the late game.
Using Meathooks I actually won a game against burn when he tapped out to cast Browbeat in the late game. I would kill him with my hive if he didn't do the job first, so it was critical. He had a hand and I had a lone counterspell, but I figured it doesn't matter to draw cards at the fundamental turn if you can't cast them, so I saved my counter for the chance that he had or would draw a Fireblast in hand (at 3 tapped lands, he couldn't cast 2 anyway (though I guess he could have drawn a Mountain and a Fireblast)). If that spell was guaranteed to deal damage, he could have baited my counter then Fireblasted for the win.
This is only true when you're guaranteed to topdeck a 3-for-1 bolt, and apparently you're not even running Magma Jets so it's difficult to set that up. I'd still rather run Needle Drop over Baubles, but I'm not sure that it's worth it because I'm usually strapped for mana. I'm still tweaking my manabase, and think I'd rather go with a couple Shard Volleys instead of Needle Drops if it turns out I can afford the extra strain on the lands. I'm currently planning 6x 3-drops and 2 Shard Volleys, and am running 20 lands.
I'm going to a small tourney this week with a burn deck with 4 Marauders... it'll be interesting to see how you do with 8 critters maindeck. I think the consensus a few pages ago was that Fanatic alone is superior in an Ichorid-heavy meta, Marauders alone is otherwise superior if you're only going to run 4 guys, and 8 may be good at stalling the ground game in creature-heavy metas but you'll dilute your power as you'll draw less actual burn and they'll probably be blocking your ground forces. It may feel good killing Isamaru with your Fanatic, but if the point is to swing to the dome, you've just wasted a card on the groundgame instead of pushing your burn strategy. (In this situation Fanatic and Marauders are mostly doing the job of Ensnaring Bridge.)
Incidentally, we keep talking about the need for recurring damage sources... I'll let the Cursed Scroll and Ankh go but I'm rather enjoying having a couple of maindeck Sulfuric Vortexes right now. It's 1RR that is just about guaranteed to hit for 2 and often hits for 4+. It gets around most Counterbalances, Chalices, and Spell Snare. Not many people play a lot of life gain, and not many people have maindeck disenchant effects. Ideally, you enjoy the extra reach it gives you in game 1 and just side it out in games 2+3. If they use life gain and have Disenchants in the side, well just hope that you've gotten game 1 and you just need to pull off one more out of two games.
Post-Morningtide List: www.curby.net/pub/temp/burn.htm Leaving Incinerate behind might be a problem if I'm hoping to use Boseiju. This might work though, because 17 Mountains and 3 Rings provides more of a threat than 18 basic mountains, Rings can be sacced to Volley, and Volley helps Ring get Thresh. Danger of cool things, or meaningful synergies?
Has anyone tried a black splash with confidants? He's so amazing late game and helps you draw throught those land clumps. Black also gives you thoughtseize in the board.
#mtgfinance follow on twitter: @mtgStaples
Team Brown & Team Unicorn. Does that make me a Brown Unicorn?
Yes I have tested Bob, he dies to all the removal that your opponent can't use on the rest of yuor deck and he's a bad top deck late game. Same goes for Needle Drop, I love the card but it has no place in str8 burn. I run it in Goyf Sligh but I have creatures to back it up.
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
Did you mean that Needle Drop is a bad topdeck? Could you please explain this? Also, how is it better in Goyf Sligh? I know I poo-pooed it above but I'm trying to explain bauble-math to myself to further understand it.
When used as burn, it's bad because it will replace a more powerful burn spell, assuming that you're already running the most efficient burn. However if you're treating it as a deck-thinner because we don't have enough "good burn," is it so horrible? Cantrip analysis: Street Wraith is safe from counters, but actively hurts us (relevant with opposing aggro, Flamebreak, Flame Rift, etc.). Needle Drop furthers our plan (albeit by a tiny amount) but gets us our card instantly. Baubles hurt us by delaying our draw and being just as vulnerable to Counterbalance/etc. as Needle Drop. In the end it seems that I would play Needle Drop as my cantrip of choice, if i were to go in that direction. The 1 mana is of little consequence because we're obviously not replacing 3-for-1 cards with Needle Drop, so the overall mana requirement for the deck stays about the same (casting Needle Drop and 2-drop compared to casting a 3-drop).
The top-deck analysis goes like this: the average card in a burn deck does a little over 2 damage (the average burn spell does 3+, and we've got roughly 40+ of them). When in late-game topdeck mode, let's examine the second card from the top. If you had Needle Drop on Mountain, you'd do a negligible amount of damage and draw and play the Mountain. For the second turn, we've said that the average card does 2+ damage. In two turns you see three cards and do 3+ damage. If it were Lightning Bolt on Mountain, in two turns you will have seen two cards, and dealt 3.
Now let's say that there's some power in the next-to-top card. If it's Needle Drop on Bolt, you'd end up dealing 4 damage now and 2ish-damage-on-average for the next turn. If it were a double Bolt, you'd do 6 damage over two turns.
Note that no other cantrip allows you to keep your damage up like Needle Drop does. The one damage might seem minuscule, but it lets us match the 3 and 6 damage that we've seen in the analysis above.
In the end, it seems that it can only increase the overall power of the deck. It may let you run a tighter list by avoiding some of the less efficient burn spells, thereby further increasing the 2ish average damage of your cards and simultaneously providing some damage itself unlike other cantrips. I think it could actually work quite well with Shard Volley and Barbarian Ring, by getting more cards in the yard and making use of any extra land we might draw. Also, wouldn't you rather hit their Bob with a Shard Volley than waste a Bolt on it?
EDIT: Whoops, you (probably) can't target your opp with NDrop if it's the only burn spell in your hand, so it is indeed a horrible topdeck. Sorry!
Last edited by Curby; 01-23-2008 at 09:08 PM.
@ kirbysdl
All I was saying is, Burn plays off the top, a lot and when I need to draw a burn spell and rip a Needle drop or Bob insted...well you should get my point. I have run the black splash for bob and he never lived long enough to serve his perpose.
As far as Needle Drop in Goyf Sligh goes, you ather means of dealing dame in Sligh. Drawing a Needle Drop off the top isn't as bad for Sligh.
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
Will countryside crusher have a spot in this deck?
#mtgfinance follow on twitter: @mtgStaples
Team Brown & Team Unicorn. Does that make me a Brown Unicorn?
No, for the same reason that every creature except for Mogg Fanatic and Keldon Marauders don't...IT'S BURN...creature don't fit well here.
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
I guess I kinda don't. Bob helps you next turn, Bauble helps you next turn, Needle Drop not only damages them now but replaces itself now. When you draw a Needle Drop, you aren't really drawing a Needle Drop. Think of it as getting a mini Leyline of Lightning before you draw your "real" card for the turn, which is more likely to be higher quality than in a Needle-less deck because you can concentrate on the best burn and run fewer land. This is something neither Bauble nor Wraith can do, at the expense of...
The only time I'd hate to top-deck a Needle Drop is if I don't have the mana to play both it and the spell I would have otherwise drawn at the same time (e.g. I have two Mountains, draw Needle Drop, and that fetches me a Flame Rift). Whether that happens a lot will require testing, but that's what I'll be doing this weekend: Updated list with Needle Drop
Seriously, can someone please point out flaws in my logic? I've always been against Bauble builds but this really seems to work. Bauble builds were looked down upon because
(1) Baubles make mulligan decisions more difficult
(1a) A hand with Baubles but no land is at best a Time Walk for the opponent
(2) Baubles don't replace themselves immediately
(3) Baubling into a bauble sucks (see 2)
(4) Topdecking a bauble sucks (see 2)
(5) Baubles don't really help your game plan besides cantripping (for Barbarian Ring)
With Needle Drop:
(1) You're only playing 4 cantrips, so opening hands are more "normal"
(1a) You're unlikely to have no turn-1 plays because of just 4 NDrops
(2) It replaces itself immediately and is an Instant
(3) As long as you have mana, feel free to chain NDrops at Instant speed with zero net card usage.
(4) If the NDrop wasn't there, you'd draw the next card anyway. Now it is there, so get 1 free damage and continue on your way
(5) NDrop deals damage while also helping Barbarian Ring
EDIT: Whoops, you (probably) can't target your opp with NDrop if it's the only burn spell in your hand, so it is indeed a horrible topdeck. Sorry!
Yup, our requirement for any critter is that it deal guaranteed damage, and even Mogg Fanatic is deemed too light (with its guaranteed one damage) for use in most builds/metas. Crusher, Ball Lightning, and Spark Elemental are all efficient, but they don't guarantee us anything even if they resolve. If you need to manage your topdeck (and you're right to be concerned about it), run Magma Jet.
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