*THIS IS NOT MY DECK OR DESCRIPTION*
Disclaimer: This is a real burn deck in standard. If you don’t feel comfortable counting to 20, if you think you “Bolt the Bird” 100% of the time, please turn away now.
Welcome to my first ever deck breakdown. This deck is currently only being run Bo1 but I have no doubt it is fast enough to win large field events in Bo3 with solid sideboard. I have played basically every red deck for the last 6-7 years, but mainly legacy burn, because nothing feels better than beating someone who dropped 5k on a deck and just expects to beat 16 bolts.
Red was already a solid deck before this expansion, but it just wasn’t real RDW/Burn. It just didn’t play like a real version.
This spoiler season I was surprised that 2 of these cards were even printed with what even exists, and a third card blew my mind the after the first time casting (discussed later). The two cards that blew my mind were, [[Skewer the Critics]] , I mean this is obvious sorcery speed bolt was going to be absurd in standard. But the card that flew under everyone’s radar which is my new favorite card in standard is, [[Spear Spewer]] .
Let me introduce 4 of my favorite Legacy burn cards, [[Price of Progress]] , [[Sulfuric Vortex]] , [[Eidolon of the Great Revel]] and my favorite [[Flame Rift]] . What do all 4 of these cards do? Right they win games…. But what else do they do? They deal damage to both players. Now you may be asking why would I want a card that deals damage to me? Because you built your deck specifically around throwing stuff at peoples faces. You need to accept that if you deal 20 to your opponent and take 19 in the progress, YOU WIN! This may feel dangerous with other red decks, but trust me, none of them are this fast. Now let me introduce you to the deck before I do a breakdown of each card and maybe some tips on how to play burn properly. I fully expect people to pick up this list and not be able to get wins because of just some missed concepts on maximizing damage in red.
Fanatical Firebrand : This is a 1 of simply because 20 lands are for sheeps, this is Burn, we don’t play creatures just to attack with them, go play white weenie you weenie.
Spear Spewer : This is my bread and butter, my love child, the reason I decided to type up this whole post. How is this guy not being rated? It’s a 1 drop that either draws a removal spell or its dealing 3-5 dmg. This is going to be the bane of people’s existence by rotation, its such a pain in the ass for people to deal with. It blocks 1/1s well and just shoves dmg down their throats. If they decide to remove it with a spell they are wasting valuable resources while I throw bolt after bolt after bolt at their face. [[Settle the wreckage]] don’t look too good when 8 of my creatures don’t even attack. We’ve decided we are going to win the race. We don’t care if we hurt ourselves in the process. This is the red moto. If your using your bolts to remove a 3/3 go play gruul, you don’t deserve bolts in your deck.
Ghitu Lavarunner : I’ve said this before, attacking with creatures isn’t our MO. This is just a solid card to activate Wizard’s Lightning. This card also allows you to keep really greedy 1 landers with the disgusting card Light up the stage.
Viashino Pyromancer : Again attacking face is week but activating Wizard’s lightning is strong. Also any dmg around blockers is very strong. Still a lower power level card in the deck. Its like people playing wizard burn have lost the plot. They are building burn around the least burn cards in the deck. Stop calling your crap wizards deck wizards burn. Its wizards tempo and it belongs in the trash bin.
Electrostatic Field : Now this card has seen play. I first used it with saffronolive’s Punisher Burn list. I fell in love with the card. It’s one of the best blockers in the format. 2 drop 0/4. Haha your Goblin Chainwhirlers suck you net decker. This card is basically always a 2 for 1 or it wins you the game. It turns 3 bolts into 12 dmg on t3. What is that? This is standard. These people have families. They just tapped out to play their 2 drop and they are at 6 health. What happened. This isn’t even magic fairy land this is real this is consistent. I will post proof.
Shock : This says any target right? Might aswell say throw at face. Kindve good with electrostatic field, another bolt? Seems fair. This is probably the only spell I’d say can be considered as removal. But only if it’s going to push 4+ dmg past.
Lightning Strike : Its standard version of lightning bolt. I get it we need to balance the format. Still… Throw this at peoples faces.
Wizard's Lightning : Baby Bolt #2 , we tend to throw these at faces.
Skewer the Critics : Main Phase Bolt, we tend to throw these at faces.
Risk Factor : Draw is a must in this list. This is the coal for the engine. It feels like everytime they pick wrong unless they pick right. I haven’t tested with flame of keld yet but I know for a fact that frenzy will not be in the main list, Ill talk about that farther down. I was originally playing 3 but 4 is probably what is needed I’ve only got punished once or twice.
Light Up the Stage : HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Where did this walk on come from? Its like the pacific islander kid that moves to school and the tight end knows he’s about to lose his spot. For me this card reads R : Draw 2 cards. That is it, don’t look into this. You will almost never be punished for this card unless you use it poorly. I like not playing a land and playing this first. So the chance of this not being R : Draw 2 is basically 0. Playing a Risk Factor off this feels nasty.
Mountain : The best land in MTG. Only color that thinks properly. The goal of magic is to get your opponent to 0 life. Blue, I want to stop my opponent from playing things. White, I want to gain life and to play a bunch of little guys. Black, I like pain. Green, I like big things. Red, I WANT MY OPPONENT AT 0 LIFE. As you can clearly see red is the only color that actually wants to win at magic.
Notable exclusions ////////
Goblin Chainwhirler : Get this crap out of my face. This is not a burn card. You like playing mana intensive things and maybe get a chance to deal more than 1 dmg? GTFO this card doesn’t fit in burn at all, Big red is a subsection of red players but they are the people who thought they were red players but really just aren’t. You know who you are.
Experimental Frenzy : Are you trying to tell me to play a 4 drop enchantment that doesn’t do anything until the turn after in a deck that wants to win on turn 4? I get it this card is cool, we all like throwing our decks around. But this is just too cost intensive, i’ve already won too many games on the turn I want to cast this, for it to seem like a reasonable addition. Though this is 100% a sideboard card, it just doesn’t make my main list. I would try flame of keld main before this.
Flame of Keld : I havent tried this yet. I don’t like that its not a instant or sorcery, so there will be times it doesn’t do dmg. I don’t like that. If you want to go extra budget You could try this over Risk factor. Let me know how it goes.
If there are other inclusions I may be missing, comment below and I will discuss it in the list.
How to play ////////////
We want to deal 20 to our opponent before we take 20. This may seem like an easy concept, but for whatever reason people are playing blue, so I guess it’s not an easy concept. Seriously though, maximizing dmg really isn’t something that is that simple, especially in this meta. Lets say you are in a situation where your opponent has a 3/3 blocker and you have 2 2/2s and a bolt. In this vacuum which is the most efficient way to do dmg? Do you want to bolt the blocker and attack with 4? What if he casts more creatures? To many it may feel obvious to bolt first then attack, but in this meta with this deck youre already too vulnerable with the creatures. Your best bet would be to sac a creature and get 2 to face and bolt the face. The extra 1 is huge and how decks are shaping up there will be more blockers future turns. You have enough bolts and other burn spells where you don’t mind losing a creature. This is why we don’t mind Spear Skewer, these are small sacrifices that we make to get to the end goal of winning, and in our case winning fast.
Here is proof of atleast some success with the list, though its very early on. This is 3 7 win runs in a row. https://i.imgur.com/05Tlg7F.jpg . The huge selling point of this list (other than it having 3-4 rare wildcards) is that time played. 31:21 , 29:50 , 16:59 . This deck is fast. I mean roadrunner fast. I mean, gtfo with your playing shitty enchantments on t2 fast. I’ve also had 7+ game streaks on ladder at platinum. I have no doubt it can make mythic, but to me mythic is a volume based thing, but it doesn’t help to build collection. This deck is perfect for ladder because all games are under 5 min win or lose, unless you slow play.
Matchups ////////
Honestly I don’t know too many of the matchups, I just know most decks aren’t fast enough to get started, lifegain 1-3 is sortve negligible, it’s when it gets more than that where it sorts to become an issue.
In the mirror match, you will most likely win the race if you can drop a field. Their chainwhirlers are sub par. If they try to remove your creatures theyll just lose. Also I haven’t seen any real mirrors yet because people are playing red piles and not burn decks.
The real mirror is rakdos burn but it’s sortve a loss if they get the gain 3 life spell. That 6 life swing is hard to overcome vs a deck that is also trying to burn your face.
I don’t think this meta has developed to the point where this deck is bad. I think its too good right now, people are testing a lot of stuff which makes the format slower. After playing burn style decks for a many of years I have figured, knowing matchups isn’t all that important since most games you are somewhat goldfishing like a combo deck (burn is combo if tendrils is). What is important is knowing specific cards that may be a wrench in your combo, and to try and play around them. If you play around stuff too much with a deck like this, you will get punished.
Here are some game wins to show how fast the list is. https://imgur.com/a/lG3rAPk It even includes a fun lesson on why you should be playing that mediocre abrupt decay on t2. I’m, going to wrap up this essay. I probably have a lot more to say on RDW but people probably didn’t even read this. They just went straight to the 4 rare wildcard decklist. Hopped into comp play and went 0-3. If that’s your experience with the deck, it’s okay, red isn’t for you. Not everyone is a winner.
TLDR : https://youtu.be/Td1HjzUA4U0
Edit : Will answer any question about Red decks. Will also go on podcast to discuss the deck in full.
Bonus : my bag of shiny pennies http://imgur.com/gallery/Ot5RIwh
Edit Edit: Every downvote stings like the bolts you're going to be taking to the face on ladder.
Edit Edit Edit: people asking for ideal hand. https://i.imgur.com/UvQ1pPY.jpg This is a nut . It was no contest https://imgur.com/a/xqyndc5 for esper (wrong order pics)
Edit Edit Edit Edit : So seems yall like the deck. Of the people currently tracking on mtgarena.pro the list has 1014 games tracked. With a winrate of 60.33%. I'm really happy considering a lot of the players have never played burn before. I expect this to drop to 55% maybe lower. Some people won't find success with it. But still a reasonable deck for the larger sample winrates. With the time played it makes a strong consideration for ladder deck. Whoever is playing in Australia and tracking from 1/20 you are currently 1-5 with the list and making us look bad.
https://i.imgur.com/CJGwYPT.jpg We coin flipping ladder bois. Grinding them events. To the person playing Bo3 with 60 cards and going 7-3. Thank you.
Gotten to the point where people are seeing thread trying deck complaining they can't win and blaming the deck. Nah some people aren't meant to play burn. It's a style of life this isn't just grab and go list. If I read another comment that says they are losing to the 4 of wildgrowth walker, I'm going to lose it. BECAUSE YOU LOSE TO WILDGROWTH THAT DOES NOT MAKE THE DECK BAD. YOU PLAYED IT WRONG. NOW WE CAN BE CRITICAL OF OUR PLAY OR WE CAN BLAME THE LIST. It may very well be a bad deck, but the fact it's sitting at 55% wins and people either are really successful or really unsuccessful, means this is a skill gap thing.
It is okay you aren't good at burn you can practice. It's basically the only deck you can sit at a table alone and figure out math +/- x dmg happening each game. Finding how much we can do before x turn. If you believe certain card will increase your winrate, it's not impossible to change card list on your own. This is 2 cards different from my first burn lost, this probably isn't optimal for expansion, maybe? If you find yourself 1-4 off consistently, you are playing something wrong. Some of the best mtg players I know wouldn't be able to count to 20 playing burn. Most people who think burn is easy tournament deck, spent over 1k on foils for their deck and expect people to whimper over their cards.
I love so many of you have found success with the list. To those who don't have success with keep trying, you'll figure it out eventually. I plan to write future articles on playing burn archetype properly. Try to call upon the articles from years ago, that helped me that I now can't find and refer people to.