The "bolt the elf" rule

[Jack]

Do you follow this in Modern? Do you apply it to all decks? This was gospel last Standard season, when we played 2-4 Pillar of Flame, mostly for fucking over green decks that kept greedy hands. In Modern, most decks will only have 4 Bolts as burn, and, unlike Pillar in Standard, it kills most things in the format. Bolting a turn 1 DRS on your main phase was usually a good play, but DRS is also a much better card late game than your average mana dork.

So, when your opponent plays a mana dork on their first turn and, when the turn passes to you, you have a Lightning Bolt in-hand, do you use it? Do you play bolt pretty much thoughtlessly, or do you consider if you should be advancing your own game plan first?

Scenario:

You're playing UR Tempo Twin with an opener of 3 lands, Pestermite, Snappy, Bolt and Spell Snare. They're on the play, and lead with Misty, crack it for
Overgrown Tomb, and drop a Noble Hierarch (typical Melira Pod play). They pass, you draw a Remand.

Do you bolt it?


Do you bolt it if, instead, you're on the play, drop a fetch turn 1, and don't have the bolt until the draw step of your second turn?

[hamfactorial]

Yes, definitely bolt it if you have it in your opener. You can't Spell Snare a T2 Birthing Pod, and you won't be able to Remand it, so delaying the acceleration is a good play.

If you don't draw the bolt until your 2nd turn on the play, still bolt the damn thing. If you're feeling silly, let them accelerate into a T2 Birthing Pod, then kill the dork in response, leaving them vulnerable to Pestermite into Twin shenanigans.

Everyone's scared of Pod, but a Birthing Pod by itself doesn't do a damn thing, and you can always Remand their Persist creature (Finks, Redcap) to really ruin their tempo.

[Longtoe]

It almost always depends on deck and hand for me. If you are a 'slower' deck like twin, control, etc. you always kill the dork. With an aggressive approach like Burn or even the new RDW it is much more debatable. Turn 1 GG is still my preferred play in format.

[Mcdonalds]

Yes, pod with mana dork turn 2 vs pod without turn 2 dork is like night and day

Most of the time I've lost to pod so far has been due to that

Course thats like maybe ten games so far

[BlakLanner]

The one phrase I utter more than any other in a Modern tournament is "Bolt(Blaze) the Bird". They are too dangerous to let live early.

[LP, of the Fires]

We should come up with examples of when you should deviate from this rule.

For instance, playing affinity, depending on my hand, in postboard games, I'll hold gutshot for kataki.

[rcwraspy]

It seems this rule is becoming more important with the new Jeskai Ascendancy deck making waves.

And by making waves I mean everybody is calling for its banning despite it only existing for 2 weeks and without any major events.