[Primer] Boros Burn

[Elricity]

I'm not sure your curve is high enough in your 75 to justify the 4th mutavault.

Can you elaborate as to which cards would make the curve high enough to justify it??

for me it has been nice against aggro decks where you need to hit your land drops and also against control.

Any 5 CMC spells or if your 4 CMC is regularly pushing past 8 spells post board, in my opinion. It's not bad going to 24 lands with six 4 CMC spells although I do feel it's unnecessary against aggro as you'll stall the board long enough that hitting land 4 isn't an issue. Against control, you'
re boarding out helix anyway to lower your curve.

If you're doing it to have another creature, I think you have better options.

[magicdownunder]

The 4th Mutavault is just too ensure you have a smooth flow of mana during aggro MUs (more lands = less mulls) and it help you hit 5-6 lands in the control mirrors so you can actually do something while your holding up Skullcrack.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Anyone who follows my YouTube Channel would have notice that the burn list is still doing work, claiming me finishes throughout the week. I havn't really stuck with SB yet though since I'm experimenting with random stuff for YOLO sake:

Here is my current list:

[deck=MDU's RW(b) Burn]Lands 23
6 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
3 Mutavault
2 Boros Guildgate
2 Blood Crypt
1 Temple of Silence
1 Mana Confluence

Creatures 08
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix

Enchantments and Removal 05
4 Chained to the Rocks
1 Mizzium Mortars

Burn 24
4 Magma
Jet
4 Warleader's Helix
4 Shock
4 Skullcrack
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike

Sideboard 15
4 Toil // Trouble
3 Boros Reckoner
2 Mindsparker
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Banishing Light
1 Reprisal
1 Fated Conflagration[/deck]

With the 2 extra B sources I'm now comfortable in going for the YOLO approach on the play against midrange decks and discards decks (cause divination isn't bad).

I'll still testing Mr. Mindsparker since I still believe Jace, Walls and Fliers neuters Prophetic Flamespeaker quite hard - though I'm comfortable enough with the meta game to test anything reasonable at this point so I'll give speaker a shot once I can offload my 260 THS boosters....

P.S. if some one has 2 spare Prophetic Flamespeaker (who are not using them) I'm up for testing.

[Khaospawn]

I love MDU's YOLO approach.

[ChrisMachado]

The 4th Mutavault is just too ensure you have a smooth flow of mana during aggro MUs (more lands = less mulls) and it help you hit 5-6 lands in the control mirrors so you can actually do something while your holding up Skullcrack.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Anyone who follows my YouTube Channel would have notice that the burn list is still doing work, claiming me finishes throughout the week. I havn't really stuck with SB yet though since I'm experimenting with random stuff for YOLO sake:

Here is my current list:

[deck=MDU's RW(b) Burn]Lands 23
6 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
3 Mutavault
2 Boros Guildgate
2 Blood Crypt
1 Temple of Silence
1
Mana Confluence

Creatures 08
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix

Enchantments and Removal 05
4 Chained to the Rocks
1 Mizzium Mortars

Burn 24
4 Magma Jet
4 Warleader's Helix
4 Shock
4 Skullcrack
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike

Sideboard 15
4 Toil // Trouble
3 Boros Reckoner
2 Mindsparker
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Banishing Light
1 Reprisal
1 Fated Conflagration[/deck]

With the 2 extra B sources I'm now comfortable in going for the YOLO approach on the play against midrange decks and discards decks (cause divination isn't bad).

I'll still testing Mr. Mindsparker since I still believe Jace, Walls and Fliers neuters Prophetic Flamespeaker quite hard - though I'm comfortable enough with the meta game to test anything reasonable at this point so I'll give speaker a shot once I can offload my 260 THS boosters....

P.S. if some one has 2 spare Prophetic Flamespeaker (who are not using them) I'm up for testing.

I do follow
your Youtube channel, but from what I've seem, you change your sideboard quite a bit. I'll be on this afternoon, I can let you borrow the couple Prophetic Flamespeakers for a day, but can you promise give it back? I'm not in position to afford another set lol

[HK1997]

I had the chance to play against Reid Duke, with him on Mono U. Since I sided in Reckoners against him (counting on domestication), I asked him after our Match what his opion on them is to bring them in vs. MonoU post board.

His opinion was "Reckoner seems good" (Did some work game 3). So stop playing around 2 Cards in his 60 and start jamming those bad boys into the Blue zone!

[Elricity]

You are a braver man than I. That said, at least you have two outs via banish to his two outs. I think mono blue used to run 4 when red aggro was in its hay day?

[HK1997]

Well you never run him out 1st (sometimes the mana wont even allow it if you wanted to). And when he has reached 4 Mana and there was no domestication cast on your YP, it's pretty much a green light. He needs to top deck it and I'll gladly take those chances. Or in my case, he cast it on Mindsparker, which ate my shock.

[dpaine88]

MDU have you lost your mind bro? You get stung by something deadly in Australia?

No Chandra? Cheating on her with Mindsparker?

Looks like we came to the same sideboard solution but I'm too whipped by Chandra

Whats the YOLO Approach? Getting more value out of the 4 Sideboard slots held by 4 Toil and Trouble? Sideboarding it in against B/x and Junk? even on the draw?

[HK1997]

I've been running this the past 3 Dailies after a dry spell of two consecutive 2-2 finishes. Finally getting hands I was able to play with I improved to 3-1, 3-1 and 4-0. But even during my dry spell I still have a perfect record when bumping heads with Bx devotion.

I think the deck is solid on 69 cards with the flex being 2x Tajic, 2x Mindsparker, 2x Reckoner:

[deck]You live forever[/deck]

It's basically MDU's test deck that I've started taking for a spin after my little "fun time" with dictate + reckoner + anger . I've noticed that the only decks that run Bile Blight, Devour Flesh and/or drown in sorrow, are Bx devotion. This prompted me to test Tajic, Blade of the Legion and I have brought him in at least 8 of the last 12 matches (really forcing it), but he wasnt the reason I dropped 2 games... I think. Reid Duke thinks Tajic is not so good vs Mono U and I tend to agree. Just because he cant be removed, doesnt make him good, but there is a point to be made that mono U doesnt interact with our board much and hence the battallion trigger becomes a real possiblity. But that is too fringe and I never intended for Tajic's trigger to go off in any matchup anyways.

I can live with only 2 reckoners and I've been drawing one consistently
enough. I pretty much never want more than one in my hand or to draw a seond. Taking a turn off, even in reckoner-safe matchups, is sometimes the last thing we want to do. So here is my breakdown of Tajic, if any of you are feeling crazy enough but still comfortable to tackle this meta:

I like him in the

Mirror: I really like him despite chains. Just make sure you run out a reckoner or phoenix first to see if the coast is clear

Monsters: They have no removal for him. Even some BW decks dont run bile blight or devour flesh, confident that their BBVs and ghost dads will give the life gain they need. I drew him once vs Jund monsters. Altho I lost that game, he bought me an additional 3 or 4 turns, holding off a 9/9 palukranos for which I was frantically searhing for an exile. I see him as a chump blocker that lives forever and can sometimes get damage thru with help. Anger of the Gods would help a lot here. But that is
too combo'ish for my taste.

UW control: Any increase in threat density is welcome for me and he lives through sweepers.

ANY Aggro: well... he is pretty much as good as reckoner imo. Lives through all conventional removal and doesnt turn on searing blood. Reckoners best friend.

So my conclusion so far is that I like him, he has a lot of utility and let's me further the overall gameplan. He improves several relevant matchups ever so slightly. That said, he is not a silver bullet but I feel he fits well into my deck, but I wouldnt hesitate to board him out again for another fun test card

The other 73 are very solid (tho the deck is solid against anything on only 69 cards already imo). Thanks MDU!

EDIT: forgot to mention that when it comes to Mana, I'm too chickenshit to run more black

[HK1997]

MDU have you lost your mind bro? You get stung by something deadly in Australia?

No Chandra? Cheating on her with Mindsparker?

Looks like we came to the same sideboard solution but I'm too whipped by Chandra

Whats the YOLO Approach? Getting more value out of the 4 Sideboard slots held by 4 Toil and Trouble? Sideboarding it in against B/x and Junk? even on the draw?

I think he is simply comfortable with or without her at the current state of the game on MTGO. The meta doesnt vary too much right now and the base 69 cards are solid enough that the rest of the 6 SB slots can be filled with YOLO cards that we never ran in the past or havent thought of running
because you might think it's too narrow. As long as the 6 in some way are complimentary and have the potential to improve certain aspects that arent "win more", you can run them. So no Iroas, God of Victory BS but Wild Ricochet is a solid YOLO card imo

[dpaine88]

you really like Tajic? I remember Adrian Sullivan running it last year in a deck I played.

I suppose hes an even 4 mana swap with Chandra.

I wonder if I would rather just be playing Paladin or Ram at that point.

Ram comes down sooner but doesn't attack.

You can argue Paladin has 2 White cost but lets say realistically you wont cast Tajic till you have 6 mana - there is a good chance you will have WW by then...

[Elricity]

Why cast Tajic with 2 mana open?

[ChrisMachado]

Hold Skullcrack up I imagine

[dpaine88]

I just wouldn't want to tap out for a creature turn 4 against a lot of decks... I think you got to keep them honest..

4 mana is big because you should have 2 spells to cast.

Against small aggro they can just pump the shit out of whatever guy you dont block if you do that.

In the mirror you will get blown the fuck out if you tap out for that guy... They can cast Helix or 2 burn. Untap, cast another burn and still have mana up for skullcrack potentially. Putting you WAY behind...

Also against Monsters - GCR owns this dude...

[HK1997]

Against small aggro they can just pump the shit out of whatever guy you dont block if you do that.

In the mirror you will get blown the fuck out if you tap out for that guy... They can cast Helix or 2 burn. Untap, cast another burn and still have mana up for skullcrack potentially. Putting you WAY behind...

Also against Monsters - GCR owns this dude...

You don't get what I typed. You don't slam him in the board and expect him to win the game. Actually most of the time he is just like any other creature we cast and subject to be tinkered with. Although somewhat less with the indestructible thing.

Yes gcr owns this dude... but he lives , although you might
not. Also gcr owns anything else we have.

Against small aggro you also wouldn't cast a Phoenix if you were scared of dying the next turn to a pump on one of two attackers.

In the mirror you will get behind anytime you don't sc in response to a helix. But we CAN read an opponents hand and find openings to tap out for Chandra pyromaster right? Or cast a trouble on t3 on the draw for potentially only 5 dmg? We do all that. Play smart and take risks when you feel you have good read. If you DO cast him, do so when he actually tapped for something sorcery speed and has no helix mana. You cast tajic, he helixes you, you helix back and swing for 2? If he kept chains for your boarded out Phoenix, fine. He still wont be casting helix then.

That said, I did mention that the 6 cards are complimentary right? I'd rather tap out for my tajic than a flamespeaker at the end of the day

[dpaine88]

I know, thats why I said you probably cast him at 6 mana...or maybe 5 with Shock.

I think there is a difference because Phoenix is 3 mana and then you can untap into 2 spells potentially.

Why would you bring in Trouble on the draw? We all don't do that....

You cast Tajic- He helix- you helix back--- you realize he is going to helix at the EOT so that he is likely untapped when you untap and can skullcrack any helix you have...

Not to mention the 4 mana is straight owned if he has chained.

[Elricity]

Ok, I did finally have a game where flamespeaker didn't help against black. He killed 2 Chandra, 2 Flamespeaker, 2 phoenix and I ended with 10 lands, none mutavaults. Game ended on turn 21 when I finally ran out of answers for his 8 threats as well. It was a bit silly.

[dpaine88]

Yall been bringing in speaker for MBC? they seem to keep in more removal than I would expect.

[Tyrael]

Most burn decks seem to be playing Firedrinker Satyr sideboard and Mono Black players have started to anticipate, it seems

[HK1997]

Point taken on trouble on the draw. When I take out at least 9 cards for the mirror, I have room for trouble. Not all do that.

I think we aren't on the same page as far as sequencing goes. It happens all the time that the opponent has less than 4 mana open at your untap because he had to react to whatever you cast before, be it eidolon yp, Phoenix or whatever like playing a citpt land on 4, shit - I've had them swing mutas at me and The occasional trouble as well. This is one opening for either reckoner, Chandra or tajic. If he untapped and chains it, he doesn't have 4 mana for helix. If untapped and helixes you, he won't have sc open for your response helix. I don't get how having 2 dmg per turn that can only be exiled is always going to put you behind?

[dpaine88]

If he wouldnt have 4 mana at your untap, it means he cast something on his turn, otherwise he would answer it during your turn and untap freely.

I think you are making a huge assumption that he was tapped out on his turn during this sequencing.

If he untaps and Chains it, yeah sure he doesn't have 4 mana for Helix but it still doesn't put you in a very good position.

[HK1997]

Maybe I am, but I've played reckoner and Chandra in enough mirror matches and now tajic, knowing that I usually find a favorable way to cast them. I think it's wrong to assume you are always facing a high tier burn player. They are a dime a dozen and on just as many variants which influences my sideboarding every time, especially in regards to whether I leave in Phoenix and yp or not, regardless sometimes of searing blood. Here is what I CAN assume: if you slip him in and assuming an even amount of helix and skullcracks on both sides, he makes up the difference in 2, latest 3 turns. Being only a two of he is more likely to be a top deck anyways and I really like him as that.
About getting him chained: I don't see how having taken a chance at sticking a repeatable invincible source of damage with minimal losses is deplorable. Yeah you aren't in a very good position, same thing can be said of ANY threat you try to stick.
Worst case you eat a Boros charm with his two SC mana when I tap out. Whoop Dee dooo. He has to keep up the rest of his 3 mana next turn or I helix and I am ahead.
Count the Times you have had a burn player cast Phoenix on t3 on the draw against you. It happens to me a lot. The last finals where I went 4-0 was vs a burn player. G2 he went crazy and straight started bashing me with 2 mutavaults, tapping out on almost every turn until he had 6 mana to keep one spell up. Ok. He soon saw I didn't have a helix but Damn.... I have no clue how he went 3-0 in the first place but these players are out there in a disproportionate amount. I play what works against what I expect to play against. And as along as dailies are only 4 rounds long and there are no byes, I expect to face a lot of chances to favorably resolve something like that or reckoner or Chandra against most of the field. More than enough UW control players, who are supposed to be playing the most skill intensive deck, kill themselves by tapping out at
the wrong time. It's what we prey on. Burn mages are the same.

[magicdownunder]

MDU have you lost your mind bro? You get stung by something deadly in Australia?

Most likely

Whats the YOLO Approach? Getting more value out of the 4 Sideboard slots held by 4 Toil and Trouble? Sideboarding it in against B/x and Junk? even on the draw?

I defined the YOLO approach as in going all in mindlessly, maybe not at the point where I'll do it against Bx and Junk but my insanity is reaching that point (but hey the line in-between insanity and genius is paper thin, I wonder
how many of you can recall when I first started using 8 mountains and that was considered YOLO/insane, though a few months later after a certain list appeared in Japan the 8 mountains became the norm).

I think he is simply comfortable with or without her at the current state of the game on MTGO. The meta doesnt vary too much right now and the base 69 cards are solid enough that the rest of the 6 SB slots can be filled with YOLO cards that we never ran in the past or havent thought of running because you might think it's too narrow. As long as the 6 in some way are complimentary and have the potential to improve certain aspects that arent "win more", you can run them. So no Iroas, God of Victory BS but Wild Ricochet is a solid YOLO card imo

This is basically it - I think as long as you maintain the 69 cards I listed earlier you can just flex the rest too suit your metagame.

I can let you borrow the couple Prophetic Flamespeakers for a day, but can you promise give it back? I'm not in position to afford another set lol

Thanks for the offer kind sir, I got a PM from Lazerburn offering the same cards and since he isn't using them currently I'll grab them from him.

[Rhyno]

Im playing in a couple of events this weekend, what's the spiciest ridiculous haymaker you can think of for my 15th sideboard slot. I'm on mobile, my list is the 1 Mizzium Mortar list.

[magicdownunder]

@Hk1997: I watched that 4-0 where you beat Reid Duke senselessness with three Young Pyromancers in play

Elricity also continued his 3-1 streak in that event as well so great stuff all-round guys.

[NotARobot]

I was thinking wild ricochet and posted too fast v_v

[NotARobot]

@Hk1997: I watched that 4-0 where you beat Reid Duke senselessness with three Young Pyromancers in play

Is there a link to this or is it a cfb premium thing?

[magicdownunder]

@Hk1997: I watched that 4-0 where you beat Reid Duke senselessness with three Young Pyromancers in play

Is there a link to this or is it a cfb premium thing?

Its just MTGO, after events we can watch the games (not sure if the feature is working on BETA though).

[BlakLanner]

You can watch some of them in the beta. I have access to all my Tourney Practice replays but nothing from actual events.

[Elricity]

@Hk1997: I watched that 4-0 where you beat Reid Duke senselessness with three Young Pyromancers in play

Elricity also continued his 3-1 streak in that event as well so great stuff all-round guys.

Followed it up with an 0-2 but I'm still up 12 tickets so I shouldn't complain.

[LaZerBurn]

I can let you borrow the couple Prophetic Flamespeakers for a day, but can you promise give it back? I'm not in position to afford another set lol

We've got a card borrowing thread for the MTGO DTR clan here Chris and the return rate is currently 100%

[BrainsickHater]

Im playing in a couple of events this weekend, what's the spiciest ridiculous haymaker you can think of for my 15th sideboard slot. I'm on mobile, my list is the 1 Mizzium Mortar list.

Cards that come to mind:

- Wild Ricochet
- Tajic, Blade of the Legion
- Aurelia's Fury (silence dem burn and control players)
- Awaken the Ancient (cuz some decks just can't deal with a hasty 7/7, and who would even expect it)
- Dictate of the Twin Gods
- Oracle of Bones (?)
- Possibility Storm (absolutely fucks over control while utilizing the redundancy of our spells)

I basically listed every RW rare I could think of that might be marginally useful in the deck, so apologies if some of those cards are way too bad for consideration.

[Kilo]

Well, it isn't anything big but after returning from my lgs I went 6-2 with both of my losses coming from mono blue. I brought in prophetic's and chandra's, and took out skullcrack and I believe one helix in round one. I played pretty poorly and literally handed him one game by forgetting to use Chandra on a MoW token. For some reason I have a tendency to play really bad round one, I'm pretty sure it's cause I take everything just for fun until I lose and then I get aggravated The other game was against someone I knew was pretty good and I think I played it alot better brought in prophetic, reckoner, banishing light, in place of skullcrack, chandras phoenix, and I think one helix. I wound up losing game three but I felt like I played it as well as possible given what I had, just seemed like he drew really well because he had an answer
for everything and I didn't hit even one answer for MoW. Anyone have any advice about the MonoU match, or how I sideboarded? Sideboarding is one of my weakest points and I've just been testing a lot of different things lately.

[magicdownunder]

It doesn't sound your making any mistakes (outside playing with fire via reckoner).

That said the MU is def. much easier with 3-4x Dancers or 3-4x MM though since they can't kill you with a swarm of token if they don't have the devotion count.

[HK1997]

@brainsickhater: Well you know my opinion on tajic...

Aurelia's fury doesn't work as intended for control. Either they can counter and then it's gone, or they can't, then we wouldn't care about them casting anything else anyways.
WR is great in the mirror
Awaken the ancient. I'm loving this.
I haven't been able to get dictate to work in a lot of testing. Has anyone else succeeded to get some consistency out of it?
Oracle is meh imo. Don't like combos.
I'm liking possibility storm. Could make for some hilarious wins.

An update on my tajic testing: Went 4-0 again after fighting and sweating my ass off vs Naya Hexproof in the first two rounds
Tajic won the first round of games for me. This one was the most intense. Him hitting UFC
and MCS g1 (loss), double unflinching g2 and again g3 plus MCS and double armour. I might be mistaking UFC with gift of orzhova in my recall, but I wouldn't know which is worse.. The biggest sweat was his 9/9 trampling, firststriking fiendslayer. Boros charm and blocking with about 10 tokens, 2 YPs and a tajic finally killed it (playing around multiple pumps as I was at 3 life) and I was easily able to bring him down to 0 from over 30 life in a couple of conservative swings later, leaving behind enough toughness in blockers to deal with anything he might have in hand to pump his last creep. Tajic came in g3 as well and won the match, stonewalling him due to the threat of a big swing back.

R3 was BW aggro (not very good against burn). I was so happy to have kept 3 skullcrack and a jet in hand when I saw that bw first land.... Didn't matter. They did their three damage as advertised.

R4 vs UW Control
sans spheres. I think I took g1 with my dead chains, but good hand overall, second he kicked my ass with triple rev and Angel on deck and my chains countered. Didn't see a scullcrack all game long. Third game I kept 5 lands, two of them scry, and two jets. Drew godly into one threat after the next after stumbling at first by drawing two more lands. But I blasted my jets at his face the moment he tapped out twice for divination and was able to enhance my draws. Tajic got cast too, mainly because there was no counter and I wanted more on board with the rest as he was heavy on last breaths and charms. Could have probably sequenced that a bit better to get my muta exiled instead but the opening to cast Tajic was there. The 7 mana didn't hurt of course to swing with mutas and be able to keep non existent skullcrack up. He finally drew his rev, elected to not last breath my 2nd muta (got another off of Jace -2), went down to 4, breathed it next turn and tried to rev but BC killed him in response. Bad play on his
part. Ok I had another Phoenix in hand which he knew about. Maybe he thought Phoenix is better than muta?

@MDU yeah I didn't go into a lot of detail on that match because I didn't want to boast when game 1 vs friggin close and came down to me top decking a helix to kill him and not die next turn. Second he overran me with double master vs no exiles and g3 he had to mull to 5, drew well but was way too far behind as I built my board. So all in all maybe not a good representation of a even match. But I'll take it

Edit: thanks for the tip mdu, saw a long name with B at the beginning and got the wires confused.

I promise this is the last edit: I forgot to mention that I had at least two "shit for brains" moments vs hexproof: one was not blocking 2 trample dmg for free vs that vultron
fsp, and two was blasting my two scullcrack at his face in one turn to generate more tokens, thinking I could block the firststriker, kill him and swing back with the remaining..... yeah. I'm THAT dumb sometimes. Luckily I didn't commit to the block and noticed the bigger Mistake before it was too late

[magicdownunder]

You beat two hexproof decks back-to-back (I at the master burn player) getting 4-0 from that point would be cake for you

P.S. Biddingmaster/Closed and BrainsickHater are different people

[HK1997]

@kilo
I agree with MDU that you sided correctly, but I'm also a fan of reckoner vs mono U. I'm guessing you just don't have access to more MMs due to running the flamespeaker (have they done any work for you?). It's a hard matchup with not a lot of interaction on his end outside of domestication, rift and rapid. I think we are a lot more dependant on the quality of our draws. Almost every threat you want to remove has a most efficient answer. For example LS on NVS instead of "wasting" a mortar since you want something for a Frostburg he might top deck. It's full of anticipatory judgment calls at times when we have the not so optimal answer in hand but then rather take damage and let nvs exile that land we really needed. I think the shouta list is weaker vs. Mono U than MDUs list at the end but with both decks the matchup isn't easy. Probably one of the toughest without secret mindsparker tech

[Kilo]

@HK1997
Glad to hear I'm sideboarding at least reasonably well. I really like flamespeaker and it does a pretty good amount of work for me, the games I did take off both MonoU's it was the reason, and it's been pretty good for me in control and aggro matchups granted I have somewhat limited testing so far (probably around 40ish sets with it) and I pretty much bring it in against anything that isn't green / monsters of some kind. I should have won the first set if I hadn't blanked on my chandra because it would have bought me an extra turn from him having lethal on board and then my chandra would of been at ultimate so it would have forced him to attack it buying me another turn and my top deck was chain -.-` I was visibly upset, I don't mind that I lost just that I misplayed so hard. Also the guy I lost to plays the "standard" MonoU so it's all streamlined and everything he draws gets him there even if it'
s not THE card he wants to see.

[ChrisMachado]

I need to get something out of my chest: I am playing mono black devotion. I am so, so sorry, I just needed something else besides burn, was getting tired of the game with "just" burn.
Ok, with that out of the way: Is Assemble the Legion AND Tajic something viable or would it be over-kill? Or even worse, shift the deck into something else? He's one of my favorite cards and well, would be nice to get to play him, as HK have been doing.

[Khaospawn]

I need to get something out of my chest: I am playing mono black devotion.

Get out.