People were actually suggesting the use of Cave-In in Burn to offset the possibility of drawing into a Thunderous Wrath in the opening hand, but this didn't sound too good for Burn. I realized that Pyrokinesis was probably the better option, but would be a better fit for decks that have a sligh-ish nature. It's also good against the current meta, as you mentioned.Originally Posted by 4eak
Some thoughts about your concerns:
- [2x] in the sideboard sounds adequate.
- The burn-oriented U/R Delver builds would likely have a better red-card density than the ones that run Snapcaster Mage.
- As for the card being a bad top-deck... I guess that that's really just something that we'll have to deal with when using the card, as I can't really think of a solution for this drawback as of now.
Cheers,
jares
//Creatures [14]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer
//Instants/Sorceries [28]
3 Risky Bet
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lava Spike
3 Rift Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
2 Fireblast
//Lands [18]
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
3 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
//Sideboard
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex
Really like this one, went back to taking Sulfuric Vortex into SB since it's badish for delver, slows the deck down, and having Mindbreak Trap in SB takes the need of Pyrostatic Pilar in it. Also another Fireblast cause 1 just sounds weird and the card is really powerful since so many times makes us win 1 turn before (and an otherwise lost game sometimes); maybe there should even be 3 or 4 in there.
And something just clicked and i think Risky Bet is the missing piece in this deck, both for more card advantage and to accommodate Thunderous Wrath. I understand people concern with this card but was playing with this calculator and with some basic math it's like: the odds of having Wrath in opening hand with 3 cards on the deck are 30%, odds of having brainstorm in opening hand with 4 are 40% etc etc, numbers rounded and without counting with muligan. Now the thing with this list is odds of having or brainstorm or risky bet in the fist 10 cards we draw (7 from opening + turn 3) to fix an unwanted opened Wrath are of almost 75%. Now i don't even know how to make the exact math but my guess is this way it will be very rare that we stay with an unwanted Wrath in hand and even if we do like 5% of the games, there are worse things in life imho
Oh, and the thing with the [card]Risky Bet[/card] is that is basically good to get +1 card when we run out of them, the thing with fixing wrath would be if we would stay with those 2 we would ditch both risky and Wrath and get two new ones, not getting the +1 but fixing the problem. Also think it works good with [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card]. We can also use it on the end of opponent turn (like we probably should be doing with brainstorm) and increase the odds of drawing a miracle
>8 spells requiring U
>6 blue sources including 2 basics
Consider cutting 1 Island (and 1 Volcanic) if you want to stick to this list. Besides that Trap does not win against Combo and Pillar is infinitely better in most of the situations (= if you are able to resolve it).
Anyway I would not take everything said here for granted. It is stunning that you take serious advice from people claiming 21 cards including FoW is not enough to support them, that it is a serious issue with a deck playing 18 lands including 4 basics to hit 3 lands for flashbacking anything with Snapcaster or that opposing creatures like Knight or Goyf will never be a serious issue for this deck because you can outrace everything.
That said I liked you initial list much more and would always go with that style of the deck because you will be able to defend yourself better against the randomness this wonderful format provides. With the "rererererise" of Burn in the current metagame people are actually packing hate against R and you will lose to nearly everything once it is resolved.
I still strongly doubt that blue in this red based super aggressive style of the deck provides enough to be worth the splash even when playing more cards like Daze or Ponder. The color provides very few viable sideboard options and does not solve any problem mono red Sligh has. I would rather stick to Rw with Lynx when intending to play an ultra aggressive Red based deck.
Brainstorm actually solves most of the problems with the deck by itself. Delver does as well. Those are the only two cards worth noting in blue.
It's not that force can't be supported, it's that you actively shouldn't. There's kind of a big difference there. What do you pitch? If Force was just another burn spell, would you even need to counter whatever you're countering? I've found that generally, no, you don't need to. The extra burn gets there faster and counterspells are very useless to the deck.
Daze is barely playable and I'd rather not do it but it is fairly helpful sometimes. In fact, it's often pretty helpful, bouncing volcanic islands back to lessen the damage of PoP and or against combo decks.
Force however, rapes your hand too hard. Daze and Force are the only cards you can legitimately pitch to it without losing something truly valuable.
That is your point of view and I can completely get it. A list got to be generally harmonious which leads to different approaches which are the more controlling and "your" very aggressive version. Presenting either as generally unplayable is amateurish. I do not see any problems pitching any card when it prevents me from losing.
... yet there is this statement on the last page which I was originally referring to:
I do not think that filtering your draw and a cheap 3/2 creature solve the problems aggressive red based decks got which are in my opinion running out of gas plus getting outclassed before winning and losing to "you lose cards" including combos of all kind and random stuff like Chalice, Confinement, CB, all the sideboard stuff, etc.
Kindly refer to the statement on the last page which you were originally referring to:
I believe though, that Kich867 was able to expound on this much more clearly with the following:
Cheers,
jares
With the second and "most basic" part of that statement being completely wrong it is absurd to take the focus on the other vague and completely undifferentiated part. I also already said that I can get Kichs point of view. If you agree with what he said I am completely fine with that but do not try to warp the crap you have written around.
Good for you then.
Again, that's great.
You might want to do the same. I don't know what your problem is, but you might want to lay off on your own crap.
-jares
oren, the feedback given to me here was precious to make the list you see here. I am aware that it doesn't bring all that much to the regular slighish mono burn list BUT i do believe this last one won't lose fuel, and will be more efficient overall (i'm to tired atm to go thru all my reasons).
This being said i agree that the first list with FoW etc was also good but since it didn't got much love here i just continued doing it on my own. As it is now i think it's as good as this last one but in a more control fashion and obv with it's pros and cons like this has.
edit: was looking at my first version and the only thing i changed was also -1Devil and -1Grim for +2Fireblast // but yeah, think that list is pretty good also, maybe even better, idk will test them both when i have time for it. Maybe i will also try to change there the Ponders for the Risky Bet, does look like a good bet =P and thank you for the mana comment, have to say i didn't put much thought on it but i think you're probably right.
You'd be surprised, then.
Brainstorm does tremendous work for this deck, often resulting in 6-10 damage. Smart players I play against actively counter brainstorms as they are often far more lethal, and the fact that against these decks people must value time far more than they value their own life total.
These decks fall apart once the tier 1 midrange 3 color control decks get to a certain point, force legitimately doesn't help that situation. What am I going to force? That stoneforge mystic on turn 2? Well that depends on my hand but my hand should be filled with maybe 1 more land and otherwise aggressive cards. Do I believe that that jitte will win them the game? Maybe, but instead of forcing the stoneforge and 2 for 1'ing myself why not just play my threats out and kill whatever they aim to equip it to if it even gets there?
With a not-so-shitty hand I regularly deal between 15-19 damage by turn 3. When you put forces in that pushes that back by as much as a turn, when you put spell pierces in even further, and with snapcasters even further. And at that point you're basically hoping to top-deck a hyper aggressive hand with maybe 1 counter in it and a brainstorm.
I posit that if you want to run forces and other counters, Canadian Thresh is a far, far more ideal deck for it. They can ride the back of a Tarmogoyf / Delver for days. This deck can't.
21 blue cards including FoW are enough to support FoW and therefore your statement was wrong. Period. Now you are starting to argue about how I expressed what I have said and I got to admit that I really hate nitpicking in that manner. Whats up with all the butthurt? Where exactly is the point to go on with this completely redundant discussion?
Obviously I am not. Also countering BS is not "secret tech" at all ...
Well lets pretend you play Magma Jet + Hellspark Elemental in the BS + Delver slots. Those cards are significantly worse for sure but you can play 18 Mountains instead of a manabase being open to Wasteland and Stifle while pinging yourself in a metagame full of tempo and midrange piles playing those cards. I just can not see how BS + Delver make a superb deck out of a mediocre one because while you profit greatly off those cards you are giving up one of the greatest advantages a mono colored deck provides. That said ... I do not think that Ru Sligh with BS + Delver is bad or even worse than mono R - I just doubt that it changes the deck in the direction needed to be top tier. In the end you got to admit that your version is not that far from mono R regarding the playstyle, general weaknesses, etc - overall maybe just a bit better because BS + Delver are awesome cards.
SFM was never a problem for me. Never. Kill it in any way and you will be able to race or counter the 5 drop without haste.
Jitte depends on the Creatures on the board. KotR and Mother are pretty bad and would probably result in countering it.
Generally it is about any card you would lose to just by letting it resolve - winning by having 2 more burn is just another approach on the problem of "you lose" cards.
15-19 dmg turn is obviously versus the goldfish. And even though this is pretty awesome an opponent resolving anything which makes you lose at this point sucks a lot. I have much rather only dealt 10 dmg while being able to handle the card you would lose to.
I played Canadian one or two times without Delver and lost a lot against Survival ... It sucks a lot that 1238273 people start to play Canadian now that it is top tier. Even if the deck got a lot easier to play with Delver (making it possible for shitheads like Kenny Castor to place 2nd at a GP) I think that it stays one of the hardest non combo decks to play properly. I do not think that I would be able to constantly play the deck on a level which would be necessary to be superior.
You got to admit that even if you are truly convinced by what you are telling me the only lists that got results were those with Snapcaster and Force. Black-white thinking towards certain cards or approaches of the deck does not help when trying to drain the maximum out of sometting.
Sidenote ... Tarmogoyf barely makes the cut in Canadian and the deck rides on Mongooses and Delvers most of the time.
21 blue cards including FoW are enough to support FoW and therefore your statement was wrong. Period. Now you are starting to argue about how I expressed what I have said and I got to admit that I really hate nitpicking in that manner. Whats up with all the butthurt? Where exactly is the point to go on with this completely redundant discussion?
Obviously I am not. Also countering BS is not "secret tech" at all ...
Well lets pretend you play Magma Jet + Hellspark Elemental in the BS + Delver slots. Those cards are significantly worse for sure but you can play 18 Mountains instead of a manabase being open to Wasteland and Stifle while pinging yourself in a metagame full of tempo and midrange piles playing those cards. I just can not see how BS + Delver make a superb deck out of a mediocre one because while you profit greatly off those cards you are also giving up one of the greatest advantages a mono colored deck provides. That said ... I do not want to say that Ru Sligh with BS + Delver is bad or even worse than mono R - I just doubt that it changes the deck in the direction needed to be top tier. In the end you got to admit that your version is not that far from mono R regarding the playstyle, general weaknesses, etc - overall maybe just a bit better because BS + Delver are awesome cards.
SFM was never a problem for me. Never. Kill it in any way and you will be able to race or counter Batterskull.
Jitte obviously depends on the board. KotR and Mother are pretty bad and would force me to force it,
Generally it is about any card you would lose to just by letting it resolve - winning by having 2 more burn is just another approach on the problem of "you lose" cards. 15-19 dmg turn 3 is obviously versus the goldfish and not against someone disrupting you/interacting with you. And even though the amount of damage is pretty awesome an opponent resolving anything which makes you lose at this point sucks a lot. I have much rather only dealt 10 dmg while being able to handle the card you would lose to.
I played Canadian one or two times without Delver and lost a lot against Survival ... It sucks a lot that 1238273 people start to play Canadian now that it is top tier. Even if the deck got a lot easier to play with Delver (making it possible for shitheads like Kenny Castor to place 2nd at a GP) I think that it stays one of the hardest non combo decks to play. I do not think that I would be able to constantly play the deck on a level which would be necessary to be superior.
You got to admit that even if you are truly convinced by what you are telling me the only lists that got results were those with Snapcaster and Force. They just can not be as bad as you are pretending them to be.
Sidenote ... Tarmogoyf barely makes the cut in Canadian and the deck rides on Mongooses and Delvers most of the time.
I don't recognize Hellspark Elemental and Magma Jet even being on the same plane as Delver and Brainstorm. The mana base is already practically immune to wasteland, I run 2 volcanics at the moment, you rarely ever need to actually fetch them.
- The deck is far from top tier and likely isn't trying to be. Few decks are. I would say that more people would play this deck because it's fairly cheap to build and a completely legitimate contender to win a tournament with, and it's fun to play.
- Delver and Brainstorm fix most of what's wrong with mono red burn. You choose cards based on potential, and Delver has way too much of it to ignore. I've had some games, for sure, where delver just dies immediately--whatever. But the number of games that I've dropped a delver and it's gotten in 6-9 damage for 1 blue mana is enough to warrant him. Brainstorm has shown me Bolt Bolt Fireblast enough times to say "This card fixes burn". You said it yourself earlier, burn's biggest issue is refueling if the opponent isn't dead. Brainstorm refuels you for 1 blue mana at instant speed.
- My opinions of force of will are far from black and white. I tested it in the deck for quite awhile, the consensus that I received after months of testing with it, is that it's not a good fit for the deck. Zilla said it best, the deck needs all the cards it can get.
- Snapcaster Mage is absurdly slow and is painful to see in your opening hand--I regularly just pitched them to force.
- I've already thoroughly outlined why I don't like a lot of counters in the deck. You either end up trying to be Canadian Thresh but you can't because you fundamentally just don't have enough counters to do it, or you end up being a shitty burn deck because your brainstorms find you counterspells when you want burns. Too many brainstorms in a list with forces and spell pierces or whatever resulted in seeing those when I needed more burn, so they were dropped for more burn and everything feels right again.
- I would posit that the lists you see that did well did well when this deck was very early in it's development--as few people have actually performed reasonably with it since, and if they are still performing well with it, I'd probably chalk it up more to drawing the nuts enough times. Lists that run a plethora of counterspells can be fucking nuts if they draw a perfect blend of counters, burn, and creatures.
- I'm not really trying to argue that this is a different deck than burn, in fact if you look at my post history, you'd notice I spent a rather long time in the burn thread recently trying (unsuccessfully) to convince them that this deck is a strictly better burn. UR Delver is a terrible name, I'd much rather call it Blue Burn or UR Burn. Hanni's blue sligh has tremendous support behind it right now from sligh players, not many people have brought it to a tournament however, I think people who play "professionally" are too afraid of letting go of their combo/3 color control decks to try something that fast and potentially swingy, but the testing suggests the deck is absurdly consistent.
However with the printing of Vexing Devil, all this deck actually needs a creature to do is about 4 damage, Vexing Devil fulfills the role Steppe Lynx did in Hanni's list and I'm convinced it's perfectly acceptable to remove it. Steppe Lynx dies to all the same shit Devil does except far worse (at least if you swords a devil you get 4 life back, as opposed to swording it in response to the second landfall trigger and only getting 2 life).
If a guide or delver gets 4-6 damage in, an opponent is at 16-14 life, most players will drop a fetchland in this time, so realistically 15-13 life. The rest is just finding some combination of 4-5 burn spells to kill them, which, isn't hard when you run 20+ of them and brainstorm..
Snapcaster was dropped, for me at least, because it's redundancy that's unnecessary. What does snapcaster regularly do? Hit bolts or something. So it's a 3 mana lightning bolt instead of just another bolt effect.. Force was dropped because after dropping snapcaster and realizing I pretty much only ever pitch snap/daze/force to force it seemed silly to even run it when I could just have more burn. It's good in the combo matches for sure though..
So that really only left delver, brainstorm, and ponder. Which is a perfectly adequate splash that addresses issues burn has.
I'm glad that we agree with that. I believe that I have already clarified your understanding of what I meant with that; kindly refer to comment #466. In fact, I find it hilarious that you're behaving disagreeably given that we're not even disagreeing!
I don't think that I can help you with that. You'll have to deal with that on your own.
I guess we agree on that again - as stated earlier, there seems to be no point because we're not even disagreeing on anything!
-jares
So i called 2 friends today to come here and play a few matches, we didn't had much time but was able to test this against merfolks, painters+grind combo (don't know the exact name), and one of my friends played against the other with my deck against affinity. I went 2-0, 2-0 but my friend went 1-2 against affinity, i saw him make one or two sub opt plays, we talked after and he agreed that he might have won if he didn't made them. The biggest was playing Devil in the middle of the game when he had enough burn in his hand to won in two turns, opponent chose that he entered and in his turn dropped tons of creatures. Loved Risky Bet, loved Thunderous Wrath but i can now see why so much discussion around Devil, it was always a lava spike for 4 for me in the first turn were i might had prefer to have a creature on the board ready to attack or in turn 2. Still can't complain about 4 damage on 1st turn without much stress.
Maybe i just run to good (only had Wrath in first hand and was able to resolve it with brainstorm) but can't see the problem ppl have with getting stuck with wrath, i get so many times stuck with PoP it's not even funny and a lot of other times it only works for like 2-4-6 damage and it's still probably a good card to have in deck. Wrath on the other hand gives so much so many times, one game i had two straight miracles to win the game on like turn 4 or 5, it felt so good (lol sample and that was ridiculously lucky but still, i play this game for fun and that was fun).
Also i now def agree with oRen on the mana thing and will also update my list with Pyrostatic Pillar cause that guy looks like he knows what he's talking about, and makes sense obviously (i just sometimes play against belcher with a friend of mine and thought mindbreak would be a better choice against it, i am a casual player after all and while i'm trying to make an overall competitive deck my meta are like 10 ppl and 15 good decks, that said i'll probably play some tournaments in a near future).
1+ Fireblast cause i really love that card and it's not as bad here as i though it would be, on the contrary.
Another thing is more variety on SB because of cards like Surgical Extraction, while not that important it definitely won't hurt to be careful.
//Creatures [14]
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer
//Instants/Sorceries [28]
3 Risky Bet
4 Brainstorm
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lava Spike
2 Rift Bolt
3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Price of Progress
3 Fireblast
//Lands [18]
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
4 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island
//Sideboard
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Tormoyd's Crypt
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Smash to Smithereens
1 Shattering Spree
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sulfuric Vortex
Btw, imho this should be called Ru Burn. lol 'R u burn?'
Last edited by kasparovski; 04-20-2012 at 01:48 AM.
Belcher should be a lose anyway when not playing counters so 1-3 Traps in the SB won't make such a big difference. I would cut the Trap for more gravehate. Relying on 3 cards against a deck like Dredge is not going to work.
Well ... if I got the choice between BS, Ponder, Spell Pierce and Bolt I do not mind paying 3 for either one. I am sure that this has something to do with the "general harmony" a deck list needs. Snapcaster without Force or the other way around seems significantly worse so dropping either would therefore result in dropping both.
You make me somewhat sad.
Or even "U R Burn!".
Cheers,
jares
Is there any evidence that moving from the version with counters to a burn list splashing U for Delver and Brainstorm produces better results? Looking at TCDecks over the past few months, I'm just not seeing it. All of these run Force, Snapcaster, and Lavamancer:
14th of 138: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...1&iddeck=59212
1st of 49: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...9&iddeck=57756
1st of 79: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...1&iddeck=58044
1st of 153: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=56058
6th of 113: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...1&iddeck=56331
Of course, TCDecks isn't the alpha and omega of measuring Legacy performance, and I didn't go through every single deck listed in the UR Burn category, just those that placed well in large events.
I'm not trying to say that this is statistical evidence that the heavier blue versions are better, but for the amount of vitriol in this thread recently, I'm just not seeing any evidence that they aren't. Am I just looking in the wrong place?
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I would actually agree with you, Richard Cheese. Although my evidence comes from personal playtesting I think the the blue-heavier version of U/R Delver is more stable and has an easier time beating combo. I don't see myself taking out much blue even after Avacyn Restored comes out.
Last edited by atropos; 04-20-2012 at 01:42 PM. Reason: Drinking beer makes me inarticulate, I only want the best grammar and word choice for my fellow Sourcers.
NoIs there any evidence that moving from the version with counters to a burn list splashing U for Delver and Brainstorm produces better results?
You won't find it anywhere, at least i didn't. It's just being discussed here but no evidence of any kind imo (not that it would work or fail fwiw.) I went with their (kich and jares mainly) philosophy and i'm trying to post and correct lists to learn more about this deck and well, i did.Looking at TCDecks over the past few months, I'm just not seeing it. (...) Am I just looking in the wrong place?
fwiw i don't think the regular list can take any of the AVR cards and win much with it, a more red version could and that's also why i was posting this lists to get feedback.I don't see myself taking out much blue even after Avacyn Restored comes out.
Thing is, is there anything interesting to be discussed on the tcdecks stable proven list?
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