Boros Burn 2.0

[TptBahamut]

So, after a few more matches... according to my opponents, my deck is awful and I'm a sack for winning.

Turns out, drawing multiple rabblemasters against junk can break through for the win. Two rabbles against junk's siege rhino into siege rhino into sorin +1 got through for exactly lethal, then triple rabbles in game 3 does a lot of damage in a hurry. And of course, my opponent whined and complained about how he didn't draw any removal. He also told me my deck is terrible against Junk, which typically I'd agree with.

And my round 1 Mardu opponent complained when I crushed him 2-0. He stumbled on mana, and as any good red deck does, it punished him. Ergo, my deck is terrible and I won because I'm lucky.

[Zooligan]

Has anyone messed around with 4/4/4/3 Swiftie/Seeker/Rabble/Firedrinker in the main?

[dpaine88]

I like Rabble main and you can swap him with Firedancer post board.

[Purp]

I like Rabble main and you can swap him with Firedancer post board.

Firedancer is unnecessary.

[Khaospawn]

I like Rabble main and you can swap him with Firedancer post board.

Firedancer is unnecessary.

Agree.

[Christen]

In my experience with the deck so far, it folds to Sarkhan in Jeskai lists. I'm gonna try to splash a little bit of black just for Crackling Doom.

[dpaine88]

He is a little tough but tapping out for him and attacking gives you a huge window to resolve a lot of burn and get your attacks in.

[Christen]

Ideally you can swing when he does, but since he comes down turn 5, it is most likely that the Jeskai player has already dealt with your earlier creatures which we don't really play en masse. He also gains the opponent typically 5 or more life, which is bad for the burn deck.

[Rhyno]

Props to BrainsickHater for talking me into audibleing to Burn. I threw a list together main decking Hushwing Gryff. Ran 3 Ride Down in the board which was insane.

I made Top 8 after conceding to a friend to get him in, then I dropped because another friend was 9th.

Deflecting Palm was swingy, won meore games than it could have lost though. The decks its dead against seem fringe but I'll probably cut it to 1 or 0.

I see people are debating Gryff, its plenty good enough for the main.

[Jasper]

Devouring Light?

4-4 at States, but there were over 180 people at mine, and I still made top 64 to get into the prize pool, lol. Loss 1 came against a Jeskai Burn brew, he just drew it all, and my draws were poor, and then hit Dig into Dig. Loss 2 was against Abzan, won game 1, game 2 he gained over 30 life, and still ended at 2 life when I couldn't draw a burn spell for 3 draw steps, and game 3 he topdecked 3 Siege Rhino in a row when i had lethal in my hand with my attacking Phoenix. Loss 3 was against some bad Naya deck where I flooded twice. Loss 3 was mostly due to not caring, but I also flooded again in game 3.

List I ran:
[deck]
Creatures 12
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way
4 Goblin Rabblemaster

Other Spells 26
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Arc Lightning
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Deflecting Palm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames

Lands 22
4 Battlefield Forge
11 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Temple of Triumph
1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Sideboard 15
4 Hushwing Gryff
4 Satyr Firedancer
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Deflecting Palm
3 Erase
[/deck]


As I was saying before, Goblin Rabblemaster feels kind of shitty. He's bad against Jeskai, and he's bad against Abzan. No real benefit to playing him right now. Hushwing Gryff was pretty fucking sick. I'd obviously rather have Skullcrack, or any other burn spell that stops them from gaining life, but whatever. Satyr Firedancer from the side was sometimes hyper effective, like in cases where I brought him in with Deflecting Palm, and other times totally useless. I think I'd rather have some Supsension Field most of the time, since he doesn't do shit about X/5's. Erase performed admirably when I needed it, and there were plenty of times where I wished I had more.

Deflecting Palm certainly won me a couple games by itself, including a time where a guy attacked with his Sarkhan and I palmed it, then Stoked him. Not the strongest card at all times, but it's definitely pretty powerful in the right circumstances.

And lastly, motherfucking Ashcloud Phoenix. This card is fucking sick, and I'm 100% confident with it being in the main deck now, as at least a 2-of. There was a game where my opponent and I were both in a top deck war at a high life total, and when I hit an Ashcloud Phoenix, I was confident that I'd eventually win. He had a Bow of Nylea out, and shot it down every turn, and at the end of each of his turns, I simply flipped it back up and dealt 2, then attacked with it on my turn and he was forced to shoot it down again.

I for one welcome our new bird overlord.



Stormbreath Dragon would have also felt pretty decent at the event, but not as good as the living 2-for-1.

[Rhyno]

Also Rabblemaster is still really good. I will not be cutting it any time soon.

[NotARobot]

Haha he certainly won the game just now... hushwings not quite as good in that slot

[Jamie]

LOL Mardu Blazebringer kicks ass! Instant 4-of over rabblemaster.

i won a single game with it. dont take this post seriously

btw I think if you think rabblemaster isn't performing but can't find something that fits the curve, maybe don't find something that fits the curve. I played chandra's phoenix when I had 3 mana in the previous standard mabye 30% of the time because if I spent mana on cp that's mana not spent on removing game-winning threats.

[Christen]

They were talking about on the stream that Rabblemaster is worse on the draw since it easily gets walled or removed. That being said, the Gryffs might happily take its place post-board on the draw.

[Purp]

[deck]
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way
3 Hushwing Gryff
2 Ash Cloud Phoenix
1 Stormbreath Dragon

4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma jet
3 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames
1 Titan's Str

2 Chandra

4 Chained to the Rocks

23 lands

Either 1 more spell/creature/land for last slot.
[/deck]

[rcwraspy]

For those dropping Rabblemaster: remember that we now have a meta with expected decks. That means control will know what to build against. I still think Rabblemaster is better if Control is a presence.

[Purp]

Rabble is pretty lack luster in the meta of "expected" decks.

[Rhyno]

Every creature in the deck is easily removed unless you bump your curve higher. Rabblemaster can take the game over by itself and gets removed often because it's a must answer threat.

I remember when people were arguing that Pyromancer was bad because it just dies.

[Purp]

Rabblemaster has "taken over" maybe 2% of my games.

You realize a jeskai list just top 8 the PT without rabble right?

[Rhyno]

Rabblemaster has "taken over" maybe 2% of my games.

You realize a jeskai list just top 8 the PT without rabble right?

First of all, that's a different deck, second, two of them did have rabble.
Also I flat out don't believe that Rabblemaster only took over 2% of your games if you were playing the full 4.
I'm testing plenty of options, but Rabblemaster is very far from bad.

EDIT: Though I guess to be fair, I don't know if you're running Ride Down, but that has been a big part of Rabblemaster blowouts.

[Valdarith]

Rabblemaster has been fine for me. The key is that you don't want to run him out into open mana. There are a lot of games where I've just played draw-go until my opponent was finally forced to make a move just so I could play an unimpeded threat the following turn. This happens most frequently with Rabblemaster and Sarkhan.

[rcwraspy]

Rabblemaster has been fine for me. The key is that you don't want to run him out into open mana. There are a lot of games where I've just played draw-go until my opponent was finally forced to make a move just so I could play an unimpeded threat the following turn. This happens most frequently with Rabblemaster and Sarkhan.

This.

I firmly believe that dropping Rabblemaster is simply conceding percentage points in game 1.

[Jamie]

I don't like Erase. It hits Coarser and Banishing Light. A card that kills coarser is like a stoke the flames that can't go to the face. Glare is the new winner since it hits everything
I feel like Chandra, Pyromaster and Ashcloud Phoenix do the same thing but against different decks. Also they cost the same mana.
Here's what I'm putting through the new gauntlet. As Rhyno said, I'm going to start playing my rabblemaster like YP$ and see if that helps my opinion of it.


[deck]
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way

4 Chained to the Rocks

4 Arc Lightning
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames

1 Ride Down

4 Battlefield Forge
4 Temple of Triumph
3 Plains
12 Mountain



Sideboard:
4 Hushwing Gryff
4 Glare of Heresy
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
[/deck]

edit: copypasted wrong list at first

[Valdarith]

I don't like Erase. It hits Coarser and Banishing Light. A card that kills coarser is like a stoke the flames that can't go to the face.

This is a poor evaluation of Erase.

[amcfvieira]

Brad Nelson is running this at the Pro Tour right now (I'm pretty sure I copied it down correctly from Wizard's weird powerpoint deck tech format):

[deck]
Creatures 11
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Seeker of the Way

Spells 24
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
3 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames
1 Titan's Strength
4 Hordeling Outburst

Planeswalkers 2
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Lands 23
4 Battlefield Forge
11 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Temple of Triumph
1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Sideboard
1 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Banishing Light
2 Suspension Field
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
3 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 End Hostilities
[/deck]

Yes it's the correct list. Brad and one more person make 21 or better points in Standard portion with that exact list.

[deck]
4x Lightning Strike
4x Magma Jet
4x Searing Blood
4x Stoke the Flames
4x Chained to the Rocks
2x Chandra, Pyromaster
1x Deflecting Palm
3x Arc Lightning


4x Seeker of the Way
4x Goblin Rabblemaster
4x Monastery Swiftspear

4x Temple of Triumph
1x Wind-scarred crag
4x Battlefield Forge
11x Mountain
2x Plains


Sideboard
2x Ashcloud Phoenix
1x Deflecting Palm
2x Erase
3x Hushwing Gryff
1x Magma Spray
4x Satyr Firedancer
2x Suspension Field
[/deck]



Searing Blood is really really good.

Great! Congrats! I like your list a lot. Do you play already against Abzan? What did it feel? Last FNM I play that exact 60 main with one exception because my deflecting palm playset didn't arrived yet, and I only lose a round because I screwed twice with a two land keep

Do you guys like Ride Down? I tried it but I didn't like it very much and feel like a dead card in the hand... Then I change it for the 13 creature in form of Prophetic Flamespeaker and I like it a lot

[dpaine88]

Yet another top8 again today. Store was running a GPT since it was a holiday.

Small event, 6 rounds n like 40-50 people.

Decided to give Brad's list a shot but dont think I sideboarded well with it with the whole control sideboard.

The maindeck was basically what I was running but Hordling Outburst over Arc Lightning which was really good!!

Ended up losing in top8 to my same friend I split States with on Saturday. We went 3 games and he had turn 3 Rhino each game and multiples the two games I lost.

Went 4-0 to double draw into top8.

Beat:
Jeskai Tempo
Junk Midrange
Junk Reanimator
Jeskai Tempo


Outburst was really good!!! I never did the whole transform sideboard thing though as I put it together last minute and didnt feel comfortable doing that.

[amcfvieira]

What do you think in running Reprisal or Pillar to deal with Rhino? Chained Rhino and it be removed/destroyed seems that will be a nightmare. Or it will be very reactive?

[Purp]

Glare is better than reprisal.

SCG would call my list Jeskai

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=74389

[amcfvieira]

Glare is better than reprisal.

SCG would call my list Jeskai

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=74389

Agree! Wizards call Brad list of RW Tokens when he had only 4 spells to produce tokens and 4 rabble.
I use 2 Glare in my sideboard last time to deal with Elspeth and White bombs, but I'm thinking in ad other for other colour creatures (but this is because I didn't test Deflecting Palm yet ), maybe Deflecting Palm make this job better.

[dpaine88]

You know, Pillar would be awesome. I should have been running that.

Against my friend in top8 I got my Chained/B-Light/Suspension field all destroyed by Utter End, Unravel the Aether and a Banishing light.

Felt really bad mid combat.

[Purp]

Which is why you play glare.

[dpaine88]

Like I said, for this event I copied Brad's list spur of the moment, thats what he was running.

I've been doing tournaments like a madman but its all really just testing for SCG Worcester this weekend.

Though there is an arguement for Instant speed Pillar that hits Courser while Glare doesn't hit Courser.

[Purp]

Reprisal didn't kill Courser, but we played reprisal over glare last season. Reprisal was 2 mana instead of 3, making it better at killing the big threats last season (poly k and demon). This season, there is no threat that is back breaking that doesn't contain white, which is why glare is better than pillar/reprisal right now. This format is slower, thus being a sorcery is not really an issue, considering we have the ability to cast two spell a turn from turn 3+.

To those not wanting to play Erase, you are crazy. You can't beat whip of erebos or bow of nylea. Not to mention it hits rams, coursers, chains, b-lights, nylea and other enchantments. It is at least a 2 of.

[Toddington]

Instant speed enchantment removal is kinda relevant nowadays...

[Purp]

That deck is not really a problem for us, but yeah you can add that under the list of cards Erase deals with.

[dpaine88]

Reprisal didn't kill Courser, but we played reprisal over glare last season. Reprisal was 2 mana instead of 3, making it better at killing the big threats last season (poly k and demon). This season, there is no threat that is back breaking that doesn't contain white, which is why glare is better than pillar/reprisal right now. This format is slower, thus being a sorcery is not really an issue, considering we have the ability to cast two spell a turn from turn 3+.

To those not wanting to play Erase, you are crazy. You can't beat whip of erebos or bow of nylea. Not to mention it hits rams, coursers, chains, b-lights, nylea and other enchantments. It is at least a 2 of.

Reprisal was also better with YP because he was great with Instants at end of turn etc. With the prowess creatures it is best to cast now on your turn.

Polukranos and Arbor Colussus can be a pain in the ass.

[Purp]

Nelsons deck that he changed for the Sunday states in Hawaii..

[deck]
Creatures (12)

1 Ashcloud Phoenix
4 Hushwing Gryff
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Seeker of the Way

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Lands (23)

10 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Temple of Triumph
2 Wind-Scarred Crag

Spells (23)

4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
3 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Hordeling Outburst

Sideboard
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
1 Banishing Light
1 Suspension Field
1 Reprisal
2 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 End Hostilities
1 Mountain
[/deck]

I am sure his article comes out this week, fuck rabblemaster.

[BrainsickHater]

Finally got a chance to play the deck at an FNM-style event. I did pretty poorly at 2-2, but finally got a non-zero amount of experience with new standard and it feels great.

Decklist:
[deck]
Creatures
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way
4 Goblin Rabblemaster

Non-creatures
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Deflecting Palm
2 Arc Lightning
1 Ride Down

1 Chandra, Pyromater

Land
11 Moutain
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Temple of Triumph
2 Plains
1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Sideboard
3 Hushwing Gryff
1 Ashcloud Phoenix
1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Satyr Firedancer
2 Banishing Light
2 Erase
1 Ride Down
[/deck]

Lots of weird card choices, all driven by either lack of cards I wanted to play or wanting to just play weird things to see how they performed. Here are my thoughts:
- Satyr Firedancer is abysmal
- Ride down is pretty good with Goblin Rabblemaster, but it unsurprisingly is absolutely terrible in certain matchups
- Deflecting Palm felt useless a lot of the time, but the threat of Deflecting Palm is very powerful. Palm is probably really good against Jeskai but I haven't played against it yet.
- Sarkhan was pretty lackluster. Costing 5 was a pretty big downside for a 22-land deck, and he's pretty meh when behind.

I played against BUG control , RUG monsters, Mardu tokens/aggro, and mono black aggro. Mono black aggro was a wash; we're insanely favored in that matchup. I thought that would be the case when I played against the mardu deck as well, but it was actually much more difficult than I expected (I ended up losing 2-0). Part of my match loss can be attributed to weak hands in both games, but afterwards a friend also on RW burn tested against the deck and also had a difficult time. I attribute the difficulty in the matchup to the presence of large haymaker cards. The mardu deck was running Sorin, Butcher of the Horde, and even such hits as Dictate of Heliod and Triplicate Spirits. These large effects were strong against me on their own, but VERY strong when played together. The RW deck really lacked a way to go over the top of threats on the level of Butcher/Sorin in longer games, which is a real problem when a deck can gain such huge amounts of life. I had a similar experience against the RUG monsters deck, as they would reach a point where they just dropped Nylea's Disciples until they were out of Deflecting Palm range. Meanwhile I couldn't go over the top of Polukranos and Savage Knuckleblade.

The ability to keep up with haymakers seems to be the real advantage that Jeskai has over RW. Jeskai gets a powerful creature in Mantis Rider, a powerful spell in Jeskai Charm, and has the huge amount of inevitability provided by running multiple Dig Through Times. RW is more consistent and can more easily create a tempo advantage, but the deck's "power" comes from how well its cards matchup with the rest of the format, not so much how powerful those cards are individually. This can be a problem when games go long and I'm looking to draw a high-impact card off the top of my library.

In fact, that's one of the reasons why I can't believe that Goblin Rabblemaster could be considered anything less than essential; he's one of the few straight-up powerful cards in the deck. He can be awkward, and oftentimes when the deck is running like greased lightning you don't even want to cast him. But, there are many times where my hand did not match up perfectly against my opponent's, and all I wanted was a powerful card I could slam down to give me a clear path to victory.

Another card I'll be maindecking is Ashcloud Phoenix. Another card that can do powerful things on its own, I have heard nothing but good things about this bird and I very much want to test it out. It's very good in a long game, but seems fine to jam down on turn 4 as well. Also, flying has been very relevant in this format so far, so having a decently-sized flying beater seems good.

This is the next list I'll be trying out:
[deck]
Creatures:
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
1 Hushwing Gryff

Noncreatures:
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Arc Lightning

4 Chained to the Rocks
1 Chandra, Pyromaster

Lands:
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
11 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Evolving Wilds

Sideboard:
2 Erase
3 Magma Spray
1 Circle of Flame
1 Deflecting Palm
2 Glare of Heresy
1 Ride Down
2 Banishing Light
2 Hushwing Gryff
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
[/deck]

I think for the most part I always want to have access to a powerful endgame in my deck so I want most of the cards that help me with that in the main. The rest of the deck is your usual stuff, minus the cards that are the most narrow (I'm looking at you Deflecting Palm). My plan with the sideboard was just to play all the cards that were either extremely versatile, or very strong in one or more matchups while still being slight upgrades in others. Despite all my talk about needing a real endgame, the deck is still powerful because of how well it matches up against all the three-color shenanigans going on; so the sideboard just tries to give the deck cards that match up even better against what's on the other side of the table.

I'm still not sure on all the numbers. Maybe I want the fourth Hushwing Gryff? Maybe I want to cut one Banishing Light for a Suspension Field (since I'm running such a diverse mix of answers anyway)?

[Purp]

You have 4 games under your belt with rabblemaster, the card is lack luster. You'll see.

[Rhyno]

If I'm siding in answers I want them to be able to hit Whip/Bow as well as the other stuff I need to deal with. That basically leaves Erase and Banishing Light, meaning I'm also probably on 2 Banishing Lights. I also ran Wear//Tear consistently the entire season and loved it the whole time.

Also there's no way that Brad Nelson list casts CttR reliably. Those crags should probably be Evolving Wilds.

As far as Rabblemaster goes, it's not going anywhere in the small version of the deck where Stoke is the only CMC>3 card. If you're cutting Rabblemaster it should either be to go big with cards like Sarkhan or go smaller and play a more all-in build.

And speaking of Sarkhan, I think I want Stormbreath in the board again, some Abzan decks only have Downfall and it beats their whole deck in combat.