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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 10:33 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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--- description ---
See the hottest burn in standard come together with a nice hidden win condition and the prowess to outrace even the Zoo.
--- end description ---
4 Lava Spike
4 Shock
4 Seal of Fire
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Lightning Helix
4 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Char
2 Guerrilla Tactics
4 Wrath of God
4 Hidetsugu’s second rite
4 Sacred Foundry
9 Mountain
7 Plains
2 Battlefield Forge
Sideboard 2 Guerrilla Tactics
4 Faith’s Fetters
4 Stone Rain
3 Shattering Spree
Basically, the deck works like this. Turn 1- burn. Turn two- more burn. Turn three- try a little of that burn again. Turn four- WoG/Right for the kill.
Why?
This deck is intended for beating up on the dual land heavy format we know as standard today. At regionals, I noticed my opponents lost an average of about two life per game to duals and pains (yes AVERAGE- I played four games where they lost four+). Nobody seemed to notice how to capitolize on that… until now. It goes like this. You should be able to burn them to death in five turns with a hidetsugu’s second rite with consistancy.
Oh yeah? Prove it!
Ok, there’s a little rule Osion told Ilvaldi at school once, and I picked it up and took the general concept and applied it. The rule was 3 damage per card is how much you need for the win. Now, because I’m allowing a five turn kill, that means I have twelve cards to use. So… *does math*. From the top six cards of the deck (four copies each), there is 84 burn damage total. Two copies of tactics will add four more, making a total 88. Then there are four copies of hidetsugu’s second rite. So basically, if you divide up the deck into pure burn, you’ll have about 14 cards needed to burn them to death, plus the added bonus of rights and wrath. With rites added, that’s 128 damage. A quick check shows that 128 damage makes between 9-10 cards necessary to draw enough burn to kill them.
What if they kill you first?
WoG! Either I should pull a five turn kill or I should pull a wrath of god. Against the Zoo (the only normal decktype that can 4-5 turn kill with consistancy), Wrath is pretty fatal, excluding hands of twelve points of burn. More on that later.
Why should I play this over other decks?
In standard right now, there aren’t any successful mono-color decks out there. And how do you think those multi-colored decks get their mana (other than heartbeat combo)? Shocks and pains, of course! This deck takes advantage of the metagame in standard, and not just part of it, but all of it.
Why isn’t pyroclasm there?
You don’t need it. The problem I had with clasm is people tend to just play kird ape and laugh at me. In a burn deck, the only thing you can’t afford to do is to have a wasted card, and that’s what pyroclasm becomes against zoo or vore- wasted.
Sideboard-
Board in Guerilla Tactics against discard
Board in fetters against things like jitte
Stone rain is for beating down mana happy decks (heartbeat)
Shattering spree is for signets and jittes etc.
This is in response to me saying I would make what I viewed as a slightly more plausable burn deck in standard. Enjoy! |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 6:42 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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| Yeah, I found out about Hidetsugo yesterday. Pretty nice card. However, I think you forgot about Circle of Protection, and that both of us DID miss one "little" thing: Ivory Mask. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 10:14 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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Yeah, you can throw some demystifies in the sideboard. I’m not worried about mask much because only rogue U/W control actually uses them. They don’t make sense in agro (GRW or BW), and they don’t line up with fires or heartbeat.
Circle of protection doesn’t worry me either for the same reason. Nobody with a good deck will actually be able to play them except maybe one matchup in a day, in which case they have to draw it to win. |
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| Felipe Musco |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 4:43 pm |
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Joined: 18 May 2006
Posts: 2434
Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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| Yeah, I know, Wrath of God is a splendid card. However, I don’t see Lightning Helix being THAT good to justify maindecking them and making it R/W... Also, I don’t quite get some of the card choices: Guerrilla Tactics is nice against discard, but, maindecking it? I don’t know... The same goes for Flames of the Blood Hand, it’s a nice sideboard card, but not maindeck material, IMO. I don’t quite get HOW can Stone Rain be a good card even in a sideboard in tournaments, I mean, yeah, they can stall your opponents a little, but the odds of that actually happen don’t pay off "losing" a 4-card gap in the SB. Oh, and I think your SB has only 13 cards, or I missed the other 2... Since you don’t quite intend to burn them to death, but rather to 10 life (so Rites can finish off the job), you can afford to "waste" a little burn on creatures, and also, without the duals, you would preserve your life points better. So either you could go monored by adding Pyroclasm and Furnace of Rath (this would mean you only have to use about 1-2 burns on your opponent before Rites), or alter my R/G version a little to fit Rites into it (maybe taking out Heartbeat of Spring...), since you would not only have piroclasm, but ALSO Savage Twister to kill their creatures fast. And boarding Green means you’ll be able to sideboard things like Naturalize, which are just great nowadays (in case Shattering Spree is not enough, or you DO play someone with Protection). Oh, and you SHOULD use Demonfire, since you’ll be burning a lot to get rid of cratures and will be hellbent from turn 5 on, most of the times... |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 8:07 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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My goal isn’t to rites them to death. It’s merely an extra way to kill them. I want to be able to burn them to death in case of other things getting in the way (like them having mana for spells or prevention etc.)
And yeah, I need to fix that sideboarding issue (whoops)
WoG justifies the color shift alone. As for helix... it’s lightning bolt with healing salve built in. Lightning Bolt is powerful in any format. Think about it- volcanic hammer is playable. Helix, in echange for turning a colorless into a colored, gives you free lifegain and the versatility of an instant. It wouldn’t justify a third color, no, but a second color will rarely give mana problems.
Furnace of Wrath is completely unplayable in all formats. Unless I’m going to combo with heartless hidetsugu, there’s no use for it. The thing is, I spend an entire turn doing nothing. Then they get to kill me with 6 damage watchwolves and maulers, and I get to sit around and die with no mana.
Adding green? What you’re saying is you prefer savage twister to wrath and helix, basically. I can’t possibly imagine a time when twister could be better than wrath, but many times where wrath is better. Oh yeah, and lightning helix rocks out. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 8:42 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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I actually have a rules question regarding Hidetsugu’s Second Rite. When you play it, what goes on the stack -- the 10 damage, or the "if" condition?
In other words, can your opponent tap a shockland or something to put himself at 9 life and cancel the Rite? |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 8:45 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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| Yup, that works, precisely why I’m not relying on it heavily. Granted, pains aren’t played too too much, but it’s worth considering. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 9:01 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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With that in mind, in seems like Hidetsugu’s Second Rite would lose some of its power after the first game surprise. Maybe have an alternate burn spell (Demonfire?) to board in against decks that use shocklands or "ping" creatures.
Apart from that minor consideration, this looks like a really solid construction.  |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 9:11 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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Well, true, but not all decks can be ready for that. Not many, actually.
Zoo would need to keep two mana open at all times- ruining them completely.
Shockland decks, too, can’t keep land open all the time.
The final reason, my best reason, is I fully intend to fake sideboard things. The obvious "best" thing to do would be to pull them out, so the subtle best thing to do is know that your opponent thinks you’re pulling them out- so they stay in. Then if I use one game two, I’d merely fake board again before game three. Or I could actually board osme, too.. you’re allowed to take your deck off the table in between games as long as it’s on top during. |
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| Ilvaldi |
![]() Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 9:36 pm |
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Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Posts: 59
Location:
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Grail makes an outstanding point on shock and painlands. In a JSS tournament, my opponents would get themselves at 14 life alone with just those shock and pain lands. Furthermore, their lifetotals decreased with the addition of the self-inflicting spell, Char. One opponent I faced at JSS got himself down to 9 life--and I didn’t even touch him, I just wasted my burn on his zoo creature (I used a Kumano to finish him).
Musco makes a good point on Ivory Mask. Grail, remember Regionals? I faced an opponent who was enchantment heavy. He was down to 12 life and I had 14 damage-worths of burn in my hand that I could easily execute in two turns. However, he plays Ivory mask and that was game over for me. But I probably got unlucky since I had four copies of kami of ancient law and did not draw them for at least 10 turns.
Musco, though, you should understand, Lighning helix is VERY, VERY, good. In Magic the Gathering’s top 50 gold cards, Lightning Helix was #8 with a point that the writer makes to state how good helix is, "How good is Lightning Helix? If Lightning Helix was a black card, it would cost 1BBBB. That’s what it takes for Black to deal three damage and gain three life... and that’s at sorcery speed! Lightning Helix is arguably the second-most efficient non-X burn spell ever printed, behind Lightning Bolt – the only other card I could think that might challenge this position is Fireblast." Furthermore, lightning helix prevents bad situations from becoming worse.
An example:
You: 2
Your hand: Char, shock
In play:
1 plains, 4 mountains
Opponent: 7
No hand
Tapped out
Kird Ape + Moldervine cloak
Now, how are you supposed to win? If shock were to all-of-a-sudden become lightning helix, maybe the road to victory would seem clearer. In other words, lightning helix is the kind of burn that prevents mass burn decks look like suicide decks.
Grail, Good point on what you said about the 3 per burn, I used that lesson to construct my red deck, which rivals with Osion’s ravager deck. |
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