Hey guys, sorry for the long absence. I'm back from deployment and finally looking to try and find some actual Legacy games in my area. I've been getting a couple of friends into Legacy, and they absolutely clean house with my Burn deck. Burn was my first introduction to Legacy, and I love every minute of it!
Standout cards (good and bad): Keldon Marauders - I saw a lot of these guys tonight and they were always great. I love their synergy with reckless abandon and played that combo 3 times. I almost always got in 5 with them or used them as a blocker. Great card.
Reckless Abandon makes sense when playing 12 or more creatures...
Price of Progress - Saw all basics in my first 3 matches so this was very disappointing but it did redeem itself. Being that I was playing burn I was usually done super early and could go watch other matches and saw a TON of non-basics (I was looking at the boards and thinking "that would be 14 damage with PoP!"). I think I just got unlucky in who I played and will definitely keep it in there as a 4-of.
POP is a one of those cards that's good in strong metas... some players seemed to reduce them to 3 or 2 in the main deck and adjust in the sideboard.
Magma Jet - The two times I played this I ended up keeping the cards as is for the scry. I am beginning to doubt the usefulness of this card with its poor damage/cost ratio.
Im also playing 18 lands and dont like the performance of Magma Jet (what I scry I'm keeping anyway) so I've drop 2 from my deck.
if PoP doesn´t work because the meta is basicland-friendly, i think i´d try flame rift before incinerate. I mean, 4 damage gross, 0 damage in the race, but to me, most of the time that single point helps. Most of the time is not gonna kill you by itself, most of the time than you can cast it FTW, you are gonna have at least 5 life, and if the meta is basic friendly, that means that decks usually have slower clock than you. It risky, and ballsy, but this deck sometimes is about taking risks, specially when PoP is not gonna help you.
if PoP doesn´t work because the meta is basicland-friendly, i think i´d try flame rift before incinerate. I mean, 4 damage gross, 0 damage in the race, but to me, most of the time that single point helps. Most of the time is not gonna kill you by itself, most of the time than you can cast it FTW, you are gonna have at least 5 life, and if the meta is basic friendly, that means that decks usually have slower clock than you. It risky, and ballsy, but this deck sometimes is about taking risks, specially when PoP is not gonna help you.
I would perfer to reduce POP to 2 in the maindeck and 2 in the sideboard. And then maindeck 2 incinerate... instant speed is so much better...
I´m not too confortable putting prices in SB. The critical 15 slots demand 15 critical cards against specific matchups, where pure burn by itself isn´t enough
Anyway, it´s worth remembering that i´d only play flame rift if the meta does have very few nonebasics. Instant speed is cool, because it gives you options, but in that particular case, the card that can help you to get a t4 average (and still keep a marginal t3 situation playing 4 bolts (not five) + flame rift + fireblast) most of the time is gonna be rift, ONLY if the meta is slow enough, of course. Sorcery speed is fine to me, in that case
when facing a deck with a lot of discard, what is riskier? keep a bad 7 card hand, or an acceptable 5 card hand, already giving your opponent a free mind rot? (I know game 2 you both did, but...Mullingan decisions with this deck shouldn´t happen THAT often)
It saved my ass several times. And btw, your Legacy environment is not dominated by money that much? How many players where there? Don't you feel a bit cheated winning so many games and getting so little prizemoney back? I'm fairly inexperienced with 1.5, so please forgive me if these are stupid questions.
Ratchet Bomb: Kills Counterbalance, Merfolk, Affinity, any permanent that becomes troublesome. Don't board it against survival, you won't live long enough to charge it. Merfolk hate it cuz it adds another sweeper that they need to counter. And do you just want to die to Counterbalance? Shusher is only worth siding vs countertop matchups anyway. It's useless against virtually every other deck. Countertop is the only counter control based deck we worry about. I mean landstill? Nah. We usually don't care about counterspells cuz burn is cheaper than counter anyday so we just topdeck more burn while they wait for counterspells. Countertop is different. We need an active thread against it. Enter Ratchet Bomb.
Pithing Needle: Stops vial, survival, divining top, any number of affinity junk, jitte etc. etc. etc. It only costs one!
Many people are hesitant to sideboard in non-burn spells for fear of not having enough business spells to win. This theory is not correct. The idea is that we aren't siding in spells to have less burn, we are siding in spells to have more resilience. By packing these answers we are essentially stalling for a few extra turns. Rarely more than that. By giving us a two or three extra turns it gives us the time we need to deliver the final blow.
Also, we are siding out less effective burn. A matchup will come along where some burn is less effective than others.
Example: Vs Merfolk. Price of Progress is next to useless against them. It neither deals damage to the dome or deals with the blitzkreig of fish swimming toward your face. Why not bring in Ratchet bomb, a card that doesn't burn BUT takes care of the swarm to give us ample time to draw that final burn spell.
Example #2: Vs Countertop. Shard volley is unlikely to get through because of its low casting cost. Why not bring in the bomb to deal with the card that signlehandedly shuts down our game. If its a particularly creature heavy build, those Goblin Guides aren't going to be striking a whole lot. Bring in some needles to slip under counterbalance and shut down the top, Or jace the the douche.
The idea of sideboarding in non burn spells is to increase the longevity and resilience of the deck. Don't be afraid to do it. It will help in the long run. I cannot count the number of times I have wipes out two or three merfolk, a counterbalance, or even 12 goblin tokens (Belcher) with a ratchet bomb.
Would having Chalice of the Void in our sideboard be useful? It would always be played with 0 counters as we certainly don't want 1 or 2 and would rarely be able to put 3 on it. This would be most useful to stop other chalices but are there enough other 0 CMC spells out there such as engineered explosives, lion's eye diamond, lotus petal and the moxen to make this a viable choice?
@Tramd: Just nitpicking a little here, but chalice wont stop other chalices, nor would it serve any point in countering an EE @ 0. The only match-up it would be useful against is combo, and even then I'm not sure if it's worth the slots. It's still pretty easy to go off without artifact mana.
@Tramd: Just nitpicking a little here, but chalice wont stop other chalices, nor would it serve any point in countering an EE @ 0. The only match-up it would be useful against is combo, and even then I'm not sure if it's worth the slots. It's still pretty easy to go off without artifact mana.
Yep, nevermind. I just looked up some rules. Didn't realize that CMC for an X spell changes when it is on the stack to whatever you paid for it. I thought it was always 0. If my incorrect thinking was right it would make chalice at 0 pretty sweet, though. Thanks.
Hey guys it's been a while since I played this deck, but played in an 11-man last night taking second.
Round 1 bye
Round 2 GW survival... no survivals played, keep 1 land goblin guide game 1, it works.
game 2 he plays mother of runes which offers a choice, I choose to ignore it, he gets turn 3 Progenitus, I don't get him. By game three I side out my Prices because I have not seen him play a single dual, not even the ones GG put in his hand.
game 3 burn him out, he swords a 4/4 Knight and I Fireblast it.
Match 3 - Team America. He counters some stuff, he fetches duals, I PoP him. G2 I board in Shushers, but don't draw any. He snuffs out my t1 GG, seems fine to me. I PoP him.
Match 4 - GW Vial antics... Eternal Witness, Kor Skyfisher, Flickerwisp, Serra Avenger, KITCHEN FINKS etc.
G1 I PoP him, G2 He triple forge tenders me. G3 I get Vortex out quick, close game, he bounces Vortex with wisp to swords his guy. I am at 11, he is at 7, I have rift bolt and PoP in hand, he has 9 power a dual and a wasteland. I fail to calculate that I am dead next turn and suspend the riftbolt to bluff something. If he taps the wasteland, I win. He doesn't.
Overall thoughts: Price of Progress doesn't work nearly as often as I thought it would. Should I be siding it out more often because it seems real easy to play around?
Great to hear of your tournament success Gurileck! Second place is quite good
Regarding Price of Progress, it's really situational whether or not you should side them out. Some decks only run a couple basic lands, which they'll usually fetch first in game 2, and in those cases I think it's alright to keep PoP in since you'll almost inevitably be able to Price them for at least 4 by turn 4 or 5. In other cases the opposing deck may have a lot of basic lands and can effectively play around PoP, so you're better off siding them out.
For me it usually comes down to if I dropped PoP in game 1. If I didn't than it's likely the opponent might not be thinking of the potential damage from PoP in game 2, so I leave it in. I've noticed regularly that if I don't Price in game 1 than the opponent won't play around it in game 2. If I do Price in game 1 I'll usually side it out for game 2, since they tend to play around it, and bring it back for game 3 if the round goes that long.
Again though, it's situational and up to your discretion. You'll also want to side it out against Combo, Ichorid, and any other deck where you don't think you'll be able to Price them for at least 4 IMHO.
Nice work on the burn. I have a question about your GW survival matchup. In game three he tried to swords a KotR? But you fireblasted it? I believe he would still gain the life in this case. I'm not sure what actually happened. (Doesn't matter now of course)
On Price of Progress. I fined it is an excellent haymaker game one. They fetch their duals and by the time they realize what happened they are dead. I then side them out depending on the matchup. Countertop usually has to rely heavily on dual lands to get there spells through. Other decks like survival can do just fine by fetching basics. Hone your skills on reading decks and decide whether they need those duals. Be very careful with wasteland in play. Decide whether it's worth it or not to have them waste their own land. Sometimes it is. Other times you just wasted a turn and they have enough mana to continue the pressure. PoP is nice to have main decked because it is easily sided out for some specific hate.
Thanks both for the advice, I was siding out Shard Volley as it is the weakest bolt, but I can see the logic behind siding out Price of Progress.
As far as the Swords to Plowshares, the Knight was a 4/4, summoning sick, and he had no obvious way of putting lands in his graveyard at instant speed, so I blast the knight, it dies, and Swords is countered on resolution because all its targets were illegal. In hindsight, I should have just blasted my opponent because it would have been the same end result except if he had a pump ability of some sort I may have lost.
Just a quick comment, I love running 3 PoP main deck precisely because of how often it is the only logical side out for any of my 3-ofs that make up my sideboard. I think it's definitely worth playing main still though because when it's good it's damn good. How else can we routinely get 6 damage for 2 mana?
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Standard: UR Guttersnipe & Talrand
Modern: U Merfolk (in progress)
Legacy: RBurn
If you're playing casually, then I'd run maindeck volcanic fallouts OR flamebreaks for sweepers that also damage. It's one of the few ways to hit multiple targets and gain card advantage in a burn deck. Other than that, there isn't too much I can tell you. It looks solid enough.
@ramzito ~ Red is funny, when you Rift Bolt (on turn 1) or have a second basic mountain in play, the opponent would foreseen that your playing Price of Progress and is likely to hold back on fetching more duals and play basic lands (unless they are not playing basic lands)
I like Smash to Smithereens because players expecting a burn deck would still openly play artifacts, especially when it gains them life.
@weltkrieg ~ If I was playing casual burn I would play flamebreak unless we are talking multiplayer casual then I would play something like Taurean Mauler or War Elemental.
What about a crucible of worlds or two and play finishers as early as turn 3 with no consequence? That could open the door for more finishers or cheap burn such as rock shards and allow only a gg or marauder build for creatures? Instead of maining 4 gg 4 marauder and 3 lavamancer
Ooops, it seems I put only 57 cards as I forgot the 3 Volcanic fallouts.
However, I may need 2 Smash to Smithereens or 2 Pillage. Which of them is better? Pillage is more versatile, while Smash also deals damage.
Moreover, if I am to add 2 more cards, I should remove 2 card from my deck. Which should it be? From my experience, magma jet has been the least useful card in the lot.
I used to play burn so maybe my 2 cents is worth at least the amount. Pillage is more a Ponza-type card. Smash to Smithereens should be in the sideboard and should be picked over Pillage because it deals damage. It's the most important thing a card in this deck should do. Magma Jet from my experience is one of the best card in the deck as it gives you deck manipulation in a mono red deck. Sometimes you need a land to throw as much burn to the face as possible next turn, and sometimes you just want gas. Jet helps you tremendously. Jet is actually the best spell to throw at a creature you otherwise wouldn't want to kill because you get something out of it that helps your main strategy, which is killing your opponent asap.
About the Crucible, that just seems very weak to me. For three mana you don't want to play lands from your graveyard, you want to burn!
So for three mana you could've cast a Chain Lightning main phase and a Magma Jet at end of opponent's turn, setting up the turn 4 kill comfortably.
Yes Pulverize is more versatile than Smash to Smithereens, but: 1. Burn doesn't care so much about versatility, it's in reality a combo deck that just wants to resolve 6-8 burn-type spells to kill the opponent, and 2. StS has the damage aspect that helps meet condition 1 - Pulverize doesn't.
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Modern:
Legacy:
Casual:
Commander:
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Figure of Destiny
Burn (27)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Price of Progress
4 Fireblast
3 Sulfuric Vortex
11 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Searing Blaze
4 Pyroblast
My Grixis Build (out of date):
4 Goblin Guide
4 Delver of Secrets
Spells (34)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Bump in the Night
4 Fireblast
4 Price of Progress
4 Brainstorm
2 Flame Rift
4 Mountain
2 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Duress
4 Chaos Warp
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Shattering Spree
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pyroblast
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
Reckless Abandon makes sense when playing 12 or more creatures...
POP is a one of those cards that's good in strong metas... some players seemed to reduce them to 3 or 2 in the main deck and adjust in the sideboard.
Im also playing 18 lands and dont like the performance of Magma Jet (what I scry I'm keeping anyway) so I've drop 2 from my deck.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
I think I will take 2 Magma Jet out and replace them with 2 sulfuric vortex MB and replace the 2 sulfuric vortex in my sideboard with 2 smash to smithereens.
I will also test out hellspark elemental as a 2-of replacement for 2 spark elementals and see which I enjoy having in hand more.
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
I would perfer to reduce POP to 2 in the maindeck and 2 in the sideboard. And then maindeck 2 incinerate... instant speed is so much better...
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Anyway, it´s worth remembering that i´d only play flame rift if the meta does have very few nonebasics. Instant speed is cool, because it gives you options, but in that particular case, the card that can help you to get a t4 average (and still keep a marginal t3 situation playing 4 bolts (not five) + flame rift + fireblast) most of the time is gonna be rift, ONLY if the meta is slow enough, of course. Sorcery speed is fine to me, in that case
I'd like to thank you for your report with a good firefox addon:
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/6984/
It saved my ass several times. And btw, your Legacy environment is not dominated by money that much? How many players where there? Don't you feel a bit cheated winning so many games and getting so little prizemoney back? I'm fairly inexperienced with 1.5, so please forgive me if these are stupid questions.
Pithing Needle: Stops vial, survival, divining top, any number of affinity junk, jitte etc. etc. etc. It only costs one!
Many people are hesitant to sideboard in non-burn spells for fear of not having enough business spells to win. This theory is not correct. The idea is that we aren't siding in spells to have less burn, we are siding in spells to have more resilience. By packing these answers we are essentially stalling for a few extra turns. Rarely more than that. By giving us a two or three extra turns it gives us the time we need to deliver the final blow.
Also, we are siding out less effective burn. A matchup will come along where some burn is less effective than others.
Example: Vs Merfolk. Price of Progress is next to useless against them. It neither deals damage to the dome or deals with the blitzkreig of fish swimming toward your face. Why not bring in Ratchet bomb, a card that doesn't burn BUT takes care of the swarm to give us ample time to draw that final burn spell.
Example #2: Vs Countertop. Shard volley is unlikely to get through because of its low casting cost. Why not bring in the bomb to deal with the card that signlehandedly shuts down our game. If its a particularly creature heavy build, those Goblin Guides aren't going to be striking a whole lot. Bring in some needles to slip under counterbalance and shut down the top, Or jace the the douche.
The idea of sideboarding in non burn spells is to increase the longevity and resilience of the deck. Don't be afraid to do it. It will help in the long run. I cannot count the number of times I have wipes out two or three merfolk, a counterbalance, or even 12 goblin tokens (Belcher) with a ratchet bomb.
Trust me. Its worth it.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
@blad01:
Your sideboard looks almost exactly like mine. I have 3 red elemental blast instead of vexing shusher, though.
EDIT: By moxen I obviously mean chrome mox, mox diamond and mox opal.
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
Yep, nevermind. I just looked up some rules. Didn't realize that CMC for an X spell changes when it is on the stack to whatever you paid for it. I thought it was always 0. If my incorrect thinking was right it would make chalice at 0 pretty sweet, though. Thanks.
Standard: UWR
Modern: RDW, Twin
Legacy: I am 3 Candelabra of Tawnos from being able to build almost any tier 1 or 1.5 deck. Here are the ones I care about right now:
-Aggro: UWR/RUB/WUB/RUG/UR Delver; Affinity; Burn
-Control: Stoneblade; UWr Miracles; UB Tezzeret
-Combo: Hive Mind; Combo Elves; Omni Tell; T.E.S.
Vintage: Grixis Painter
EDH: Rith, the Awakener
Round 1 bye
Round 2 GW survival... no survivals played, keep 1 land goblin guide game 1, it works.
game 2 he plays mother of runes which offers a choice, I choose to ignore it, he gets turn 3 Progenitus, I don't get him. By game three I side out my Prices because I have not seen him play a single dual, not even the ones GG put in his hand.
game 3 burn him out, he swords a 4/4 Knight and I Fireblast it.
Match 3 - Team America. He counters some stuff, he fetches duals, I PoP him. G2 I board in Shushers, but don't draw any. He snuffs out my t1 GG, seems fine to me. I PoP him.
Match 4 - GW Vial antics... Eternal Witness, Kor Skyfisher, Flickerwisp, Serra Avenger, KITCHEN FINKS etc.
G1 I PoP him, G2 He triple forge tenders me. G3 I get Vortex out quick, close game, he bounces Vortex with wisp to swords his guy. I am at 11, he is at 7, I have rift bolt and PoP in hand, he has 9 power a dual and a wasteland. I fail to calculate that I am dead next turn and suspend the riftbolt to bluff something. If he taps the wasteland, I win. He doesn't.
Overall thoughts: Price of Progress doesn't work nearly as often as I thought it would. Should I be siding it out more often because it seems real easy to play around?
Regarding Price of Progress, it's really situational whether or not you should side them out. Some decks only run a couple basic lands, which they'll usually fetch first in game 2, and in those cases I think it's alright to keep PoP in since you'll almost inevitably be able to Price them for at least 4 by turn 4 or 5. In other cases the opposing deck may have a lot of basic lands and can effectively play around PoP, so you're better off siding them out.
For me it usually comes down to if I dropped PoP in game 1. If I didn't than it's likely the opponent might not be thinking of the potential damage from PoP in game 2, so I leave it in. I've noticed regularly that if I don't Price in game 1 than the opponent won't play around it in game 2. If I do Price in game 1 I'll usually side it out for game 2, since they tend to play around it, and bring it back for game 3 if the round goes that long.
Again though, it's situational and up to your discretion. You'll also want to side it out against Combo, Ichorid, and any other deck where you don't think you'll be able to Price them for at least 4 IMHO.
Nice work on the burn. I have a question about your GW survival matchup. In game three he tried to swords a KotR? But you fireblasted it? I believe he would still gain the life in this case. I'm not sure what actually happened. (Doesn't matter now of course)
On Price of Progress. I fined it is an excellent haymaker game one. They fetch their duals and by the time they realize what happened they are dead. I then side them out depending on the matchup. Countertop usually has to rely heavily on dual lands to get there spells through. Other decks like survival can do just fine by fetching basics. Hone your skills on reading decks and decide whether they need those duals. Be very careful with wasteland in play. Decide whether it's worth it or not to have them waste their own land. Sometimes it is. Other times you just wasted a turn and they have enough mana to continue the pressure. PoP is nice to have main decked because it is easily sided out for some specific hate.
As far as the Swords to Plowshares, the Knight was a 4/4, summoning sick, and he had no obvious way of putting lands in his graveyard at instant speed, so I blast the knight, it dies, and Swords is countered on resolution because all its targets were illegal. In hindsight, I should have just blasted my opponent because it would have been the same end result except if he had a pump ability of some sort I may have lost.
Modern: U Merfolk (in progress)
Legacy: RBurn
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
I like Smash to Smithereens because players expecting a burn deck would still openly play artifacts, especially when it gains them life.
@weltkrieg ~ If I was playing casual burn I would play flamebreak unless we are talking multiplayer casual then I would play something like Taurean Mauler or War Elemental.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
GBW Control
UWB Esper Thing Control
I used to play burn so maybe my 2 cents is worth at least the amount. Pillage is more a Ponza-type card. Smash to Smithereens should be in the sideboard and should be picked over Pillage because it deals damage. It's the most important thing a card in this deck should do. Magma Jet from my experience is one of the best card in the deck as it gives you deck manipulation in a mono red deck. Sometimes you need a land to throw as much burn to the face as possible next turn, and sometimes you just want gas. Jet helps you tremendously. Jet is actually the best spell to throw at a creature you otherwise wouldn't want to kill because you get something out of it that helps your main strategy, which is killing your opponent asap.
About the Crucible, that just seems very weak to me. For three mana you don't want to play lands from your graveyard, you want to burn!
So for three mana you could've cast a Chain Lightning main phase and a Magma Jet at end of opponent's turn, setting up the turn 4 kill comfortably.
It's almost card for card the deck in the primer so it can't be too shabby.
J
Yes Pulverize is more versatile than Smash to Smithereens, but: 1. Burn doesn't care so much about versatility, it's in reality a combo deck that just wants to resolve 6-8 burn-type spells to kill the opponent, and 2. StS has the damage aspect that helps meet condition 1 - Pulverize doesn't.