The Core of the deck, other then Flame Rift is not the problem as I see it. My only issue with GG is that I suggest running sweepers MD and SB and as a result would kill it myself. If you wanted to run it for a turn 1 play know your might kill it yourself on turn 3 or 4 I wouldn't argue against it. Even Lava Spike, which I dislike as it is too narrow for my taste, I have started running as a 3 of and then side out against almost everything except combo.Originally Posted by jares
A few notes on that:
1) There are variations and we see them in the listings but since we don't see the matches themselves we are left to guess at how a card worked out. A few pages back I was asking why FOD and not Kargan Dragonlord. Based on the discussion of a page or 2 ago it sounds like not only is FoD really not worth playing but if anything my theory on Kargan Dragonlord might have been true. Not that I like either in Burn but if I was going to play 1 it would have been Kargan Dragonlord. So the question is was FoD really important to how that deck placed well? or was it a Deck that placed well that just happen to have FoD in 2 slots that could just as well been Shock? Flamebreak? Smashed to Smithereens? or Grizzle Bears? I promise you, you take a deck, any deck, to a big tourney event, place top 8 with it and it will be copied card for card without question for your card choice and even if you no longer agree with all of the card choices.
2) Once a specific deck build places well the number of people running that exact deck increases. No one had ever seen or heard of Fruity Pebbles until it won a big tourney. That next week it was in local store all over country. Increase the number of people playing a deck and you increase the likelihood of one of them do well with it and continuing the avalanche effect. A lot of bad players doesn't help, you need good players playing it, but there are a lot of good players out there that couldn't build a deck of their own to save their lives. Lots of good players copy decks too.
3) The vast majority of players in today's magic decide on what deck to play based on what they see online (what they have the cards to build) or what they say do well at the last store tourney (again, based on what they have the cards to build). Long gone are the days of walking into a tourney of 20 people and seeing 20 completely different decks. And this is a format with the 2nd largest selection of cards. We see people talking all the time about "I played that person's list that came in top 8 at that event". It is 1 thing to test cards and build but the amount of number of players that truly independently do deck design are few and far between. So it should be no shock that so many decks that win look the same, +/- 4-6 cards.
All that being said there is only one way to get an accurate test of how 1 version plays out verse another version and that would be to have a group of people play both extensively and compare. You can't have just 1 person do it because a personal style of play would impact how you choose to play. Can't have 2 people, 1 playing each, for the same reason. And the test would need to be extensive, long enough to let the players get a solid feel for both versions strengths and weaknesses. Oh, and you cant have the designers do the testing. It would need to be a blind test.
1 Last important note. There really is no such thing as an "optimal" build for any deck other then combo decks because aside from combo we are not playing a game by ourselves. We are forced to interact with the other player. CabalTherapy said a while back to "stop thinking about sub-optimal and unplayable cards" but players have a tendency to define what is playable and not very narrowly, often without solid testing and almost never are they willing to reconsider later. Burn has had the same philosophy since the creation of Magic and only now is that really being tested. A mindset that old is not easy to break.
Oh Gatherer,
the 1 match in that report that you won with a Flame Rift + Fireblast you could have won with a Shock and a Fireblast. Killing someone with something doesn't make it good. I won with a Mesa Pegasus (the card, not a token) once. Does that make it good?
Not to mention he was playing what sounds like a very old school green stompy based on Ghazban Ogre and Rogue elephant. You should have an advantage if for no other reason then it sounds like his newest cards were 15+ years old.
That's a lot of text.
As much as a lot of valuable points are noted here, I don't see my questions being answered by the notes above, and I find that all the peripheral information only blurs this discussion further. Maybe we can try to make it simple by briefly addressing the following requests:
- May we request you to state your entire point in one complete sentence?
- Given the recent success of Burn and its inclusion in the DTB section, would you say that the deck is able to address the current meta such that it's able to perform well (answerable only by a Yes or a No)?
I hope that helps. So many points have already been thrown around that the value of this discussion is no longer helpful. I'll be looking forward to the simplification of this dialogue.
Regards,
jares
1 word? ummmm.... YO (yes and no)
**note: I had written a much longer explanation as to why but asked for a 1 word answer so I gave you that and a short "few" sentences I can elaborate on later if needed**
Biggest factors to allowing Burn to break into being a DTB where it hasn't been before?
1) no other mono Red or primarily R/x/x decks out there. No Goblins means no Chill in SBs for example.
2) Lack of discard in top decks
3) other then FoW there are no commonly played hard counters that don't have a restriction on targeting.
that being said of the other DTB 2 are combo"ish" and there is little we can do to stop them. The others all have various combinations of fast clocks, life gain, and counters. Any combo of which is trouble. Yes Burn has reached new heights but given the lack of any real meaningful changes in the deck in years, as someone who studied statistics I can tell you, you will see flier points, a brief "blip" n the screen. My point since we made it into the DTB has been "if we want to stay here we need to be prepared to change our thinking."
Now if you look at the DTB you have 2 combo"ish" that there is little we can do about, a mirror which how you approach depends on how you build Burn, but the other 5 are all weak to sweepers and most have targets for Smashed to Smithereens. This is really where my deck diverts from mainstream Burn.
Unfortunately, your answer doesn't help us at all. Also, in this case, Yes and No are mutually exclusive - you're either performing well against the meta (winning), or you're not (losing) - competitively speaking, you can't win and lose at the same time, because someone has to win (thus, someone also has to lose).
Much has already been stated regarding the facts about how Burn is currently faring, and I no longer wish to go in circles regarding this inquiry, as the answer to this is already obvious. Let's just let the facts speak for themselves.
Good to know. We can add these to the list of facts that support the obvious conclusion.
I agree - we should, in fact, be prepared to change our thinking whenever necessary. To add to that, we should also know when to resist change. In summary, we'll have to go back to square one - we'll always have to address the meta for what it really is.
I can see that we've already agreed on what the general Burn Core is, and I'm glad that this idea is already nearing a consensus. As for the rest of the "open" slots, I believe that it has already been noted that this is the space where each our configurations would differ.
It's good to know that there still are some that actually go through the troubles of testing the way that I try to do, and while our configurations are somewhat different (my preferred build has also gone against popular wisdom by running Fetch Lands again, among other differences), I agree that there is not one configuration that should be "crowned" as the only configuration that will work - otherwise, it should all be so obvious that we won't even need to discuss anything.
At the end of the day, our differences will likely persist, and we each have to ensure that the reasons for why we stay different are chosen wisely. I wish you luck with your build.
Cheers,
jares
Its really not that simple a question. The way most people currently play Burn, trying to race I think is a 55/45 at best and becoming a more and more losing plan every day. Burn does however have access to cards that most people do not play that would greatly improve their chance against a large number of the DTB. So yes, Burn has the ability to IMPROVE it's overall ranking taking a bigger piece of the top 8 pie, but in my view it can only do that IF people stop trying to race to 20 damage because that is a losing fight. Otherwise we are just here in the DTB until Zoo, Goblins, ANT or whatever kicks us out.
Yep, you better start putting some combo pieces into your deck, because "20 to the head, asap" is "a losing fight".
Seriously, you want to address the weakness of the deck by significantly slowing it down and therefor exposing the deck to other threats? Why not play UR?
It is a losing fight, much like trying to explain to you why it is.
You don't even have to read 112 pages of this thread to know that Burn has been shooting for a turn 3 or 4 kill for 15 years while every generation of decks we face get faster and are now on our heels AND they don't suffer from running out of gas they way we do. Never mind that there are combo deck that can go off on turns 1 and 2. And nothing about the differences between my build or the more conventional Burn build slows it down.
Like I said above the game plan for Burn has been set in stone since the 1st Burn decks, longer then the 15 years since Fireblast was printed. I really don't expect any of the more close-minded among us to see things differently until someone wins with a deck running something different.
If being closed-minded means I don't want to switch Burn with a different strategy and still call it Burn, I am indeed closed-minded.
If you don't like the game plan, Burn is the wrong deck for you then. As I said, why don't you play URx Delver/Sligh?
Plus, Burn currently works. It wouldn't be listed as a DtB if it didn't.
H3llsp4wn,
Clearly you haven't looked at my build so please don't comment until you at lest do that. Once you do you will find strategy is the same. My card selection differs in that it provides me more options in the event my opponent gains more then 2 life, counters a spell, plays a CotV at 1 on turn 1, or I draw a 4th land. All common things that could lead to a loss against another deck. We have had a rather well thought out conversation among people who at lest look at the decks they are talking about and often even tested them before posting. So please do your homework before opening your mouth and making anymore of a fool of yourself.
Hello all
Burn was my first legacy deck and I still sleeve it from time to time for cheap laughs. I believe Goblin Guide and Hellsparks are excellent in burn, but Grim Lavamancers and Figures of Destiny are too slow and don't focus on ending the game quickly enough. Flame Rift is an auto include for me as our deck smashes the supposed equality of the card. Here is my list... it is very standard.
4 bolt
4 chain
4 rift bolt
4 lava spike
4 flame rift
4 price of progress
4 fireblast
3 flames of the bloodhand
4 goblin guide
4 hellspark elemental
3 keldon marauders
2 barbarian ring
16 mountain
sb
3 sulfiric vortex
2 reb
3 pyroblast
3 chaos warp
4 smash to smithereens
-
I really like Marauders, even if they get in for 2 and force a trade then I'm happy because it clears the path for Hellsparks and Guides. Every time marauders does 5 you're coming out ahead. The second unconventional choice is the 3 md FotBH. This card has been excellent for me, remember it's an instant. Being able to shut off BS for a turn in g1 is the difference between winning and losing, we all know this. I like FotBH also because knowing you can turn off BS means not having to waste bolts on SFM like you would have to do otherwise.
Good discussion so far guys! Some cool lists and innovation, just don't innovate so much that you detract from the core strategy, which is blowing up the other guy s quickly as possible
I would advise using Flame Javelin over Flames of the Bloodhand. FJ hits either player or creature and is impossible to counter balance. And your going to use Vortex to prevent life gain anyway.
CB is not a concern for me as it is only seeing play in some RUG sbs. And if I expect CB I have several blasts to counter it (probably won't be able to blow up CB with a blast though once it's online...) And I would also bring in Chaos Warps in that MU if I expected CB/Top.
Being able to target creatures is moot. FotBH denies BS it's most important function in this MU, and since lifegain is our biggest enemy g1 I feel like FotBH is a stronger choice.
What deck were you thinking of that could CB/Top a 3 drop? Traditional CB or Thopter/CB might be able to, but those decks are not seeing play.
I've seen people CB 3-drops with Vendilion Clique a few times and a Crus of World once or twice. I'm sure I've seen some other 3 drops topped but those were the most common.
But the more important thing is to be prepared for the unexpected. You lose nothing by play Flame Javelin over Flames of the Bloodhand and gain flexibility. If you are that worried about life gain, which you should be, Vortex is far and above the better answer.
It's a losing fight because in the realm of combo, burn is extraordinarily slow. Pyrostatic Pillar isn't a terrible idea as honestly, if you drop that on turn 2 and they hesitate for a turn, an untap should guarantee you the win.
Coupled with the fact that burn almost fundamentally can't win on turn 3 like most other sligh decks can (why are you referencing UR delver here? The deck is a turn faster than Burn, Burn is the slower version of UR..), I agree that accepting that fact and slowing the deck down against decks that it obviously can't race is a good thing. However, often times TES and ANT require life in order to go off, so domeing them for 9 on turn 2 -can- win you the game after an ANT, especially given they can't get anywhere near 4 life because they need to play around fireblast.
Against High-tide, pyrostatic pillar will win you games. If they want to get rid of it, they'll likely have to cunning wish for a bounce, except they probably need to either spend 2 turns doing it or high-tide, dig for wish, wish, then play the bounce--it's entirely possible for them to die before getting there or spend so many resources removing it they can't combo off again.
You have some maindeck answers to dredge in hellspark elemental (spark elemental's inclusion would help this out a little bit).
I think, realistically, the hardest deck to race will be UW stoneforge, if they keep a counter-heavy hand, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Force, and Mana Leak/Counterspell are going to stop 2-3 burns and that's 2-3 turns you'll have to wait.
I'm not ecstatic about Rogue's build, some of the card choices feel suboptimal (for instance, if you're using Flame Javelin as a burn that's unlikely to be countered, you might as well run Urza's Rage to just make it uncounterable, same mana cost, 1 less damage, but won't be stopped). Dead and gone doesn't look very exciting, it's flexible but you shouldn't be needing it.
I feel like Burn just needs card selection, you should be dumping your hand and then going into top-deck mode, but going into top-deck mode you have no idea whether you're drawing business or not. Sensei's Divining Top would go a long way to remedy this. It wouldn't* likely slow you down by more than a turn if that, you're filtering your draws very hard with it--Jares already runs fetches, which interact in an insanely positive way with Top, being able to peek three, ditch it, then peek 3 again if you're out of gas.
I mean, Burn needs to land 7 bolt effects in order to win right, the likelihood that you have 5 bolts + 2 lands and draw into 2 more bolt effects and a land over the next 3 turns is not very likely. You run too many creatures and too many 2+ mana cards like Flame Rift for that to be a realistic sequence of opening hands + draws.
A good control deck will counter 1-2 of those burns and set you back that many turns, people need to consider the fact that the number of burns required to kill the opponent after your opening hand (mulling can set you back at least one turn per mull) is the number of turns it will take past turn 4 to kill the opponent. Burning everything you have turns 2 and 3, then winning on turn 4 with a single top decked burn, is no different than dropping top turn 1, bolting and spinning turn 2, then spending turns 3 and 4 dumping everything you have after you've rearranged your next 3 turns with optimal draws / fetched away poor draws and still winning turn 4 anyways.
Most burn lists look like they're aiming to do something that they can't do, which is win on turn 3, the only way I see this realistically happening is if Goblin Guide is dropped turn 1 and gets 3 swings in, otherwise, you'll have them close to being dead but not really. And now you're spent on turn 4 with mana open, when something like Top would allow you to spend that mana earlier to ensure that you're actually drawing into useful cards as you run out of gas.
I should post the current version of my deck but that will have to wait, but Dead//Gone has been Gone a long time now. I decided as much as I like being able to bounce that Goyf, it only came back next turn and in at lest a few games if Dead/Gone had been a Burn spell I would have won then. An early Goyf can still be a big problem. It means you cant afford to draw 1 too many lands. But that 1 extra damage from Flame Javelin is worth it over Urza's Rage. Other then FoW Flame Javelin is almost uncounterable because of its converted casting cost. CB won't hit it, Daze and Snare can be played around, it is not a 2-drop spell so no Pierce, and no one seems to play Counter Spell anymore. Also, Flame Javelin will often kill a Goyf if you really need it to.
As far as the Top goes, I just have never had any luck with it. Always seemed a waste to spin it. Maybe to make it work you need more then 4 fetchlands, which I am not a fan of in Burn, but that was the feeling I got from it.
Where do you play where being CMC 3 makes it nearly uncounterable outside of FOW?
Spell pierce, mana leak, counterspell, force, daze..they all easily counter that spell.
At what point, while playing burn, are you at 5-6 land in a deck that should be running 17-18? I also just proved to you that sensei's divining top doesn't actually slow you down.
Let's just say that hypothetically, since it's somewhat ideal, you hit your first 3 land drops and miss the fourth because you're playing burn and you don't want 4 lands (unless you have double fireblast, which is awful, jares said something about this being not that bad which I'll address after I guess).
So you have a total of 1 + 2 + 3 + 3 = 9 mana available to you. Given that you require some combination of 6-7 burns, be it 6 bolts and a fireblast (I'm ignoring price of progress since it's damage is so variable) or 4 bolts and a flame rift and a fireblast (probably one of the more likely events).
Turn 1: Top, 1 mana. 1 Total
Turn 2: Bolt + top, 2 mana. 3 Total
Turn 3: Bolt + Bolt + Top, 3 mana // Flame Rift + Top, 3 mana 6 Total
Turn 4: Bolt + Bolt + Bolt + Fireblast, 3 mana // Bolt + Bolt + Bolt + Fireblast, 3 mana // Flame Rift + Bolt + Fireblast, 3 mana. 9 Total
All of those scenarios allow you to both play and spin top to it's most effectiveness and still win on turn 4--the turn you're winning on most (should be almost all) of the times anyways.
--
In regards to double fireblast, I don't see how this is ever ideal. In order for the second fireblast to even deal damage, you also require a fourth land, which means you occupy 2 cards to deal 4 damage--this sounds terrible. Almost every other combination of 2 cards in the deck deal at least 6 damage. If, on your turn 4, that fireblast and land were a flame rift and a bolt, or a bolt and a bolt, or a marauder and a bolt, etc... you'd be dealing more damage, dispersed over the same number of cards, so clutch counterspells will be less likely to stop the overall damage. I would rather someone counter my bolt and be forced to let the flame rift / bolt resolve than sacrifice two lands and eat a counter to the face and lose the game.
Oh, and StoneForge is by far not the hardest match for me, in fact I would say its no harder then Mav or Nic Fit.
The hardest match-up for me has always been Sneak Attack/Show n Tell. Doesn't matter how many games I play nothing short of an 8 card SB seems to make it winable and even then its not very likely. Best to just keep a solid SB for other things and hope you don't see this deck.
I genuinely don't see how stoneforge could possibly be on par with Maverick or Nic Fit, as those two decks don't have the greatest burn matchups (though a lot of nic fit players are now boarding duress for the combo matchup, which happens to be pretty damn good against burn when you open something like cabal therapy, flash it back, duress). Maverick doesn't win quickly, it nearly can't in fact. A nic fit player who doesn't keep a discard heavy hand should get blown out before they can deal with it, unless they draw into some serious nuts and have veteren explorer / tower / GSZ in hand for the finks.
Inarguably, they run a lot of very cheap / free countermagic. Every counterspell that hits your burns sets you back another turn as burn has no persistent threats that aren't easily dealt with.
Even with a decent Stoneblade hand, you're going to run into something that looks like: Spell pierce > stoneforge for batterskull > snapcaster for Spell Pierce / batterskull cheated in eot. This should eat up 2-3 burns, pushing your win back to at least turn 5, but probably turn 6 or 7 as they begin to stabilize (at which point, Top will help you find your maindeck vortexes to stifle their inevitable health gain and serves as a means to burst them out once you find the setup, perhaps a Price > flip top into fireblast or Rift into fireblast, something like that).
Show And Tell does look fairly unwinnable for the deck, but in my experience they hurt themselves rather badly while going off unless they have the combo in-hand in which case you're SOL. Pyroblasts would be useful in maybe slowing them down, but red really has no answer to this situation.
A useful trick is to sand-bag a mountain. They do get pretty low when going off, if they Show and Tell for Emrakul (it pretty much has to be emrakul or you can race them), remember that you're not actually dead yet. Do what you can on the next turn, eat the 15 points, sac your lands, and hopefully he's at 3 or less and you can drop a land + bolt.
The reason I have less of a problem then most with Stoneforge and put it on par with Mav or Nic Fit is I do run 4-6 sweepers MD including Volcanics and 2 Smashed to Smithereens MD with 2 more in the side. I know Batterskulls and Jitts are coming I think its stupid not to have 2 MD waiting for them. I also know 1/2 of the DTB are based on 1/1, 2/1 2/2 creatures and cheap counters there is 0 reason not to have Volcanic handy for them. If you try to race they counter a few spells putting you behind and they win. Conceed that they are faster and play around counters and bring sweepers they cant counter.
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