[Deck] Burn

[Sims]

There have been a few lists that have incorporated 2-3 Flame Javelins for decent effect. Is it the most optimal burn card? No, but you take what you can get.

Hell, I still occasionally play Ogre-Dokken for the fuck of it sometimes, but Flame Javelin is a solid card. I wish it was 3-for-5 or 6 instead of 3-for-4, but again... Running it as a 2-3 of has never hurt me any time I've taken Straight Red into one of my local tourneys.

[Tanarin]

If you know you are not going to play against multiple artifacts or control decks with problematic artifacts, play Smash to Smithereens. If not, then play Shattering Spree. It's generally safer to play with Spree because it is easier to resolve than StS, but StS brings you closer to your goal while removing the artifact.

I can actually see maybe running a 2-2 split on spree and StS. I don't think it is smart to drop spree altogether, especially if you for some reason see a lot of affinity in your meta.

[Sims]

I can actually see maybe running a 2-2 split on spree and StS. I don't think it is smart to drop spree altogether, especially if you for some reason see a lot of affinity in your meta.

You can get through Affinity with just Smash, because Price of Progress makes that deck cry blood.

[heroicraptor]

Here's my list:

// Lands
19 [UNH] Mountain

// Creatures
4 [10E] Mogg Fanatic

// Spells
4 [LG] Chain Lightning
4 [U] Lightning Bolt
4 [CHK] Lava Spike
4 [TSP] Rift Bolt
4 [NE] Flame Rift
4 [10E] Incinerate
4 [FD] Magma Jet
3 [EX] Price of Progress
3 [MM] Cave-In
3 [VI] Fireblast

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [A] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 3 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [SHM] Smash to Smithereens
SB: 2 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 3 [SC] Sulfuric Vortex

I want to try Sulfuric Vortex in the main, but I don't know what I should swap out for it. Any suggestions?

[ScatmanX]

-1 or 2 flame rift
-1 or 2 Incinerate
-1 or 2 Magma Jet

fit in 2 to 3 Vortex (you have cave-in, so you can have 3 I guess)
and the 4th Fireblast

[Shugyosha]

yes, rift bolt is good for dealing 3 damage in the long run. but suspend or the alternate 2R cost make it weak for instant speed targetting.

rift bolt was released October 6, 2006 in the time spirial set. since then theres been planar chaos, future sight, lorwyn, morningtide, shadowmoor, eventide, shards of alara and now conflux.

what good burn has there been ?

shard volley ? thats doo doo with fireblast.

flame javelin ? 6/RRR for 4 damage ? thats doo doo too.

am I missing something ? wheres the good solid burn ?

The "no more than 4 card with the same name except basics" goes back to several things, one of them being the "42 Bolts, 18 Moiuntains" deck which is the prototype of an autopilot deck. Its not unbeatable but its mere existence would be rediculous. It takes any decision making out of MTG.

[Curby]

shard volley ? thats doo doo with fireblast

flame javelin ? 6/RRR for 4 damage ? thats doo doo too.

That first one seems to be more of a knee-jerk reaction than the result of testing. When I tested 18 land (2 being Barb Ring), 4 Fireblast, and 2 Shard Volley, I still saw more land than I needed with 12 total sac effects in the deck (Fireblast counts for 2). I refuse to go to less than 18 land because then I have to mulligan too often with 0- and 1-land openers. Anyway, if you fear having too many sac-land spells and too few land, that's exactly why newer lists prefer Cave-In over Flamebreak: pitch what's least useful in any given game.

I agree that Flame Javelin is sub-par. I'd prefer the tricks of Flames of the Blood Hand or Pulse of the Forge over the ability to hit creatures. 4 damage spent on creatures is a lot to not spend on the opp. (but it still can't kill Tombstalker).

More thoughts on Sulfuric Vortex: If only it guaranteed damage when it hit, e.g. 2 damage when it comes into play, and 2 damage to all players during MY upkeep. The only saving grace is that people are unlikely to side in (or keep in) enchantment removal just for 4 cards in your deck, but "splash" damage from BEB and such will still hurt. Again, any non-land permanent must guarantee damage to merit inclusion.

Instants are a precious commodity for agressive builds (my preference), and most decks contain more than 2/3rds Sorcery speed plays (lands, a few creatures, and the actual Sorceries themselves). "Agressive build" Burn players should always be looking for ways to increase their Instant/Sorcery ratio; even if just by small increments.

I certainly agree with that. I once beat a ScepterChant deck on the back of my Instants, cast during my Upkeep. =)

I never made the claim that Incinerate "actually does more damage"; so that aspect of your argument is mute from the get go.
...
Then why misrepresent my position in order to disagree with yourself? If you see little/no fetches in your meta then by all means go with another option; however, if you're quite likely to see a fetch popped within the first three turns, then Incinerate will improve your Instant/Sorcery ratio, inflict less suicide dmg, and be just as fast as Flame Rift as far as your goldfish is concerned.
...
I still prefer agressive builds that attempt to streamline towards that ideal by optimizing their chances.

First of all:

In my meta, I'm almost certain to see my opponents pop a Fetch within their first 3 turns; so it functions as an instant speed 4-for-2 as far as my goldfish is concerned.

Again, I realize that your main point is that you need to do 19, not that Incinerate actually does 4. The first problem I have is that you then say "well, Incinerate is good enough because we don't really need 20." You could substitute almost any 1-less-damage card with that argument. E.g. put the Flame Rifts back in instead of Incinerate, and put the Shocks in instead of Lightning Bolt. The deck as a whole still does the same amount of damage. Regardless of what your deck needs to do to win, each individual card still just does what it says, and any excuse for the power level of one card could be used as an excuse to include another. You can certainly run Incinerate for its strengths, but its weaknesses are still weaknesses.

In this post you once again mention that you optimize for the goldfish. My second counterargument is that if anything, we should expect a need for more than 20 damage when goldfishing for accurate results. What you hope to be a kill oftentimes isn't, because of the aforementioned countermagic, lifegain, discard effects, resource denial, etc. that run rampant in Magic. In other words, if you're expecting the imaginary opponent to help you kill him, you should expect that opponent to hinder you as well. Otherwise, just goldfish for 20 and call it even.

If you find that it most often gets in for an unblocked attack in your meta, then you've probably made the right choice.

Yeah, my opponents tend to be hesitant to block my 3/3 early on, esp. with Cave-In in the deck. That's another reason to include Cave-In, of course: Flamebreak kills my Marauders. Plus, he does tie up the ground game on the opponent's turn before he can attack, and any hesitation on the part of my opponent is a good thing.

It takes any decision making out of MTG.

It would still lose to the deck with 5 fewer Bolts and 5 more Fireblasts, and anyway you still need to decide whether or not to mull.

Speaking of mulling, are there any 4-land openers you'd keep (pre-board)? When playing burn I've started to throw back anything except hands with 2 or 3 land.

If you know you are not going to play against multiple artifacts or control decks with problematic artifacts, play Smash to Smithereens. If not, then play Shattering Spree. It's generally safer to play with Spree because it is easier to resolve than StS, but StS brings you closer to your goal while removing the artifact.

I'd simplify this to "use Spree in a meta with a lot of Chalice, and Affinity, and StS otherwise." As I (and others) mentioned many pages back, the joy with StS is that we can side it in during marginal cases where they have utility artifacts that don't really break us, e.g. Aether Vial or some equipment. In general we're more cautious siding in Spree because sometimes we'd rather let them keep their artifact and do more damage instead. At the cost of being more easily disrupted, StS gets around that problem and can therefore be used more often.

Shattering Spree used to get around Countertop is arguable. You're not going to destroy many tops because they can hide it on top of their library in response, at which point we ask what artifacts do they have that are must-kill?

Shattering Spree against other control is also arguable. What artifacts do they run that are must-kill? Dreadnought?

[kensook]

Shattering Spree used to get around Countertop is arguable. You're not going to destroy many tops because they can hide it on top of their library in response, at which point we ask what artifacts do they have that are must-kill?

Shattering Spree against other control is also arguable. What artifacts do they run that are must-kill? Dreadnought?

Sorry to be unclear, I didn't mean Countertop by control with problematic artifacts, but specifically Dreadstill and Painter's Combo. Also control decks with chalice (some MUC builds come to mind) might also be a problem with just StS. But yeah, I agree with your statements about StS vs. Spree, and StS will probably be a better choice in most metas.

[Seriously]

The "no more than 4 card with the same name except basics" goes back to several things, one of them being the "42 Bolts, 18 Moiuntains" deck which is the prototype of an autopilot deck. Its not unbeatable but its mere existence would be rediculous. It takes any decision making out of MTG.

burn is pretty much autopilot now, I dont see what harm a few more solid burn spells would do. magic has many cards, that are essentially the same card with a different name too. relentless rats is rediculous, I'd rather have relentless burn.

relentless rat is relentless.

[Darkenslight]

Is there ny potential in Lightning Storm from Coldsnap? 3 damage +2 per land chucked seems quite strong; only downside being that if they have more land than you, you're boned.

[Curby]

Is there ny potential in Lightning Storm from Coldsnap? 3 damage +2 per land chucked seems quite strong; only downside being that if they have more land than you, you're boned.

Our builds tend to be pretty land-light and we sac them to Fireblast (and possibly B Ring/Shard Volley) as it is. If you ever get an opener with 4+ land you should mull it anyway: it's much more likely that you'll get a better grip of 6 than draw and win on the back of your Lightning Storm. In short, even if the opponent couldn't send it back to you (and note the popularity of Loam now), it'd still suck.

Also a counterspell results in a many-to-1 card advantage play for them.

If you want a 3-drop that's conditional, try Browbeat first. But I'd rather run Flames of the Blood Hand or Pulse of the Forge as better 3-drops.

[bowvamp]

ok, so the build that I'm running right now is as follows:

4 Rishadan Port
17 Mountain
4 Price of Progress
4 Lava Spike
4 Fireblast
4 Blood Moon
4 Rift Bolt
4 Magma Jet
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Cave-In
3 Active Volcano
SB: 4 Plague Boiler
SB: 4 Sun Droplet
SB: 4 Smash to Smithereens

It runs a megaton of nonbasic hate, just how I like it. The problematic decks that do play basics play islands, so your active volcanos are uber-sinkholes. I am playing plague boiler just in case I play a deck like stax, chalice.dec, or whatever I feel the need to board it in against. I really like Cave-In, because it takes some of my situational cards and puts them to a good use. I run rishadans because they allow me to have an ok late game. Blood moon is awesome because of how broad a spectrum of decks fear it.

[Lcpdenijs]

@ bowvamp:
Nice build. Can you also tell us what results you get against the current metagame?

[georgjorge]

Has anyone tried Sirocco in the side against blue yet ? It would act as a MUCH better Flame Rift (whatever they discard is one less counter for your burn, or one less draw spell to get that counter in their hand). It's even an instant. Spells which give your opponent choices are sketchy (I don't like Browbeat either), but an opponent having 2-3 blue cards in hand has to make a pretty tough choice.

[bowvamp]

I believe that sirocco has chronic brainstorm before sickness, they hide their spells, and make yours worthless...

[Knuckles29]

Is noone talking about Hellspark Elemental? If it was mentioned I missed it. Because it is basically a Bolt with Flashback

[GGoober]

I might write up a primer for Red Sligh. The old Extended (7 years back) list I played ran a bunch of cheap 1 drops (Jackal Pups) and relied on Reckless Abandon for good "fling" damage.

If I were to run a Sligh version of Burn, I would probably play:
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Spark Elemental
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Reckless Abandon

The only thing I hate about Hellspark in Burn is that it's 2cc, which clogs up all of our 1cc plays. Marauders is still much better in my opinion.

[Knuckles29]

I'm going to disagree. You get 5 tops out of Marauders. 6 from Hellspark. The haste part is relivant b/c it lets you time the swing. The trample means no chump blocks from say a 2/2 Hound. I just think that it fills the 2 drop creature as burn role better IMO.

[GGoober]

Sure it does 1 more damage, but that's accounting that you play him on Turn 2 without being killed (Fanatic, StP). He follows up nicely on Turn3, but what I'm saying in Burn, you're more likely to be emptying your hand as fast as you can and bring their life down low in Turns 3-4. Marauder has the great ability to be useful even in topdeck mode since it's at least 2 damage. Hellspark is real crappy in topdeck mode mid-game since your opponent would have had a Goyf in play by then,

Although, now that I think about it, if your opponent has goyf, he probably would have swung at you (assuming he assumes that you're playing traditional burn, i.e. no creatures with haste), so that Hellspark might be useful.

I'm not dismissing Hellspark. I'm just saying that under most situation, Keldon Marauders is more reliable in pushing 2-5 damage, while Hellspark is less reliable at pushing 6 damage. He probably can get 2-4 across. I do like the extra card advantage built in the card. Like I said, I'll write up a primer for Red Sligh soon. Reckless Abandon is amazing in that list with 8 mini-ball lightnings :)

[Darkenslight]

I believe that sirocco has chronic brainstorm before sickness, they hide their spells, and make yours worthless...

Please remember that Sirocco also causes loss of life, not damage.

Are there any cards from Conflux in the deck that would help Burn, aside form Hellspark?