Dies to Removal

BiddingMaster

well it turns out that everyone was right about mindswipe and deflecting palm. I put them all aside for game day and came away with a 4-1 finish and a 4-0 finish in two events. I did not play rabblemaster and instead ran hushwyngs/ashclouds with mainboard nullify ad i needed sideboard supression fields which i did not have. So far im realy liking the jeskai skies list that lsv posted on channelfireball and I think its the best list really. Im going to be playing a list very simillar to it except im not going for brimaz's and instead im going for chandra/keranos but thats really the major changes id make to the list.

BiddingMaster

lol i did say that all i did was take what we had from the old burn list and update it with similar cards. this basically is the same boros burn deck and ill explain why. Seeker does the same job as young pyro but slightly worse against heavy removal midrange decks. We are trading a creature that generates so much tempo for a creature that allows our burn and non instant/sorcery cards to hit creatures dealing them damage though he doesnt do that same thing on defense though it works wonders facing aggro. Mantis rider deals one more damage wich allows it to punish planseswalkers a hell of alot better and just outright kills xenagos. Again we are weak to heavy removal midrange decks but when it doesnt just die its gets in for more damage over the course of a game than phoenix which is equivalent to the recursion and it blocks creatures favorably on defense where phoenix was terrible. Its the same deck but with the new format we have to play differently depending on what becomes good in the format. I like the idea of running brimaz/rabblemaster but I dont want to commit so heavilly to the board and thats why i like the hushwing. It gives us another damage outlet allowing our removal to hit creatures and acts like a skullcrack. We cant play the exact game we were playing with burn and we dont have the same lines but I think seeker does allow us to play a pretty damned good impression of our old deck which was the draw to this archetype. what im really starting to wonder is do we really need blue? I keep tweaking my deck in my head and I keep coming back to the comclusion that maybe we should dump this deck and go for a deck that more resembles our old list? thoughts?

BiddingMaster

the reason i like hushwing gryff is because its a creature that they dont want to kill and if they take 4 points of damage off of it waiting for mantis rider or seeker then we have just stoked them and if they take 6 or 8 we are getting lethal with critical mass of burn. Who wants to kill it? I know I wouldnt.

BiddingMaster

pretty interesting list from top8 of the 5k

Straight Boros Burn

[deck]
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Seeker of the Way
Creatures [12]
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
Planeswalkers [1]
3 Arc Lightning
3 Chained to the Rocks
3 Deflecting Palm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Searing Blood
4 Stoke the Flames
Spells [25]
4 Battlefield Forge
11 Mountain
2 Plains
4 Temple of Triumph
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
Lands [22]
SIDEBOARD
1 Arc Lightning
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Banishing Light
1 Chained to the Rocks
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Deflecting Palm
2 Erase
4 Hushwing Gryff
1 Suspension Field
[/deck]

im suprised its not running some number of coordinated assault. 2 seekers plus assault against aggro and they are
pretty much dead.

lol looks like what my deck is slowly turning into. I just like having the blue in the deck for certain cards like mantis rider which is aggro and cant be blocked easilly and having access to counters in the side for the grindy games that we are forced into. I like the idea of a boros aggro deck though and I have a list in the works but I dont think it has enough reach. Ive decided on my deck whether im going to play hushwings or not. ive taken three to the main and one to the side and moved the mindswipes to the side for control and mirror matches.

BiddingMaster

[deck]
creatures
4 seeker of the way
3 satyr firedancer
4 mantis rider

enchantments
4 chained to the rocks

burn spells
4 lightning strike
4 stoke the flames
4 magma jet
3 deflecting palm
4 jeskai charm
3 mindswipe

lands
9 mountain
4 temple of enlightenment
3 shivan reef
2 battlefield forge
2 mana confluence
2 plains
1 island

sideboard
2 suspension field
1 deflecting palm
1 keranos, God of storms
2 disdainful stroke
2 chandra, pyromaster
4 eidolon of the great revel
3 hushwing gryff[/deck]

ok so going forward im totally not on the 5 drop plan because tapping out is not what we want to do. I really wished i had tweaked my decklist a little before I went to this last event but wtf live and learn or not learn as khaos suggests i do. I never really thought about how good the seeker of the way is especially against t2 cryatid. There are going to be board states where he is a little
lackluster but i think all in all he is a very solid beatdown plan that we can use and I beleive we can keep the board clear enough to get him in for the kill. I want to be as tricky as possible not as grindy as possible. Other decks do the grindy thing a bit better than we can and they also have sarkhans as well. Im still sold on every card in this list and I found myself needing extra cards to deal with hornet queen because damn its a bitch if our opps see it hence the hushwings. There are decks where I want the swipes and there are decks where I want the gryffs. Any devotion strategy puts alot of pressure really quick so i needed a way to cancel effects and deal damage so maybe I should cut mindswipe altogether and just run the gryffs. I feel like im getting closer and closer to the correct build and I really like how this new build doesnt fold to aggro like my last one. Deflecting palm is still awsome and it does a damned fine lightning helix impression. I dont think it has not dealt less than 4 damage
the whole time and ive maxed out at 8 points so far. Mindswipe probably just needs to be three and i might run one less stoke to run one gryff in the main. I also dont like rabblerman because he commits me too much to a certain strategy and i feel is less flexible and I cant afford his price tag right now anyway. So for now this is the list im going to try and jam for my next event and see how it runs.

BiddingMaster

Got some notes from today's testing. I'll spare everyone the notes from the Abzan Weenie's matchup, because that deck proved itself to be a steaming pile. Either that, or it has zero way to win against 2 mana burn spells in general. Searing Blood and Monastery Swiftspear means that he can never attack while I have 2 mana open, or he risks losing 2 creatures and I spend 1 card. The Abzan Midrange guy had classes all day, and then had to go to work so I didn't get to test against that.

Anyway, here's some scribblings relating to the matchup vs RUG:

His decklist: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kaiju-
shenanigans/
Halfway during testing, he decided that he hated the Temur Charm, and replaced them with Stubborn Denial. He's also running 2 Kiora instead of just 1, since he doesn't have a Sarkhan. And there are 2 Mana Confluence somewhere in there, he really needs to update the decklist on there or something.

My decklist is posted in this thread, above.

The turn 2 Savage Knuckleblade is real, and it pretty scary. The good news is that I did actually beat it in a race, thanks to Deflecting Palm, and some lucky draws set up by Magma Jet. The amount of life lost from lands is pretty good for our burn deck.

Burning out the Elvish Mystic, if you are on the play, is extremely important. No surprises there.

Icy Blast is extremely annoying,
but at least you can convoke a Stoke the Flames in response to diminish the value.

The mana base for my list worked much better than expected. If I didn't have all 3 colors available on turn 3, I generally got them by turn 5, and playing a Mantis Rider on turn 5 is still a solid play if you still have a burn spell in hand. I will say though, moving forward, I will be testing 2 Mana Confluence in place of 2 Mountains. I really like not having any CIPT lands, and this deck really needs all it's mana available at all times.

Individual card notes:
Monastery Swiftspear is fucking awesome. Punishes other aggro strategies for attack into it with mana open, and can give a very aggressive start against decks that stumble with CIPT lands and not having the colors they need. Sylvan Caryatid still bricks it for a while, but it kind of does that to most early
drops anyway. This hasn't come up in testing yet, but being able to attack into a Courser of Kruphix with 2 mana open is pretty sweet too.

Goblin Rabblemaster, I'm sorry I even doubted you. If they don't have the removal spell, then it gets out of hand quickly. It's also worth noting that he's super easy to cast, when all you need is 1 red source and anything else. When they do remove him, that just clears the way for another high impact creature. He also trades pretty favorably with the big creatures in the format.

Mantis Rider, absolutely bonkers, as expected. Great offense, great defense. Attack for 3, and then he's there to block any pesky 1 drops that stuck around, or just chump block so you can survive for the untap and burn finish.

Magma Jet is still sweet, especially given my lack of Scry. May bump it up to 4.

Lightning Strike
almost always just went to the face, or eliminated a Kiora every now and then.

Searing Blood, awesome, run 4.

Deflecting Palm, this over-performed for sure. I'm almost 100% on going up to 3 in the main. It got me out of a bunch of tough spots that no other card would have been able to do. All you really need to do is target a 3 power creature with it to get the value out of it. Great at screwing up combat math and letting you survive 1 more turn to win the game.

Jeskai Charm is pretty fucking sweet. The Lifelink mode is way more useful than I expected, especially if you have a Swiftspear or some Goblin tokens attacking. Definitely performed for me. Didn't use the bounce effect too often, but it was useful when I needed it. 4 damage for 3 mana is pretty nice too, when you need to top deck the killing blow.

Stoke the Flames, still great, run 4. Convoke to save your goblins,
kill a Knuckleblade, kill a Courser, kill a planeswalker, etc. Great spell.

Mindswipe, underperformed. I don't think I had it actually counter anything today, and one time I had both in my opening hand and it ruined me. Probably good in the hyper-late game, but it pretty much didn't do shit for me. 100% on removing both.

Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker, pretty sweet. Mostly used the removal mode, and forced my opponent to commit damage to him instead of my life total.

Stormbreath Dragon, 1 is fine. He's still pretty solid, and dodges a lot of the current removal in the format. Late game mana sink if you flood, strong solo finisher.

Moving forward:

Removing the 2 Mindswipe, since they didn't do dick all day. Options to fill those slots include another Deflecting Palm, more Magma Jet, or 2 [card]Turn
to Frog[/card]. My testing partners today seemed to like the idea of Turn to Frog as removal, blocking the attacking frog, or dropping a flyer to the ground to push in some flying damage. A lot of my games today involved scenarios where one player was forced into the path of racing, and cards that let you live for another turn or 2 are super solid.

Tips from my judge buddy: Don't forget to call a judge any time your opponent forgets to show you a Morph creature when it leaves the battlefield. If it goes to his hand before showing it to you, then that's grounds for a game loss. Also, you do not have to declare Prowess triggers when you cast spells, only when they become relevant, such as when damage is dealt. Expect blowouts early on in tournaments, due to people forgetting that creatures are bigger than they look. The Prowess trigger is derived information, based on you casting a spell earlier in the turn.

what was your list? I dont think ive
seen you post it unless i just missed it.

BiddingMaster

I have come to the conclusion that my old mana base is horrible. This is what im looking at testing out next. currentl working on cockatrice right now. So far its working rather well but i still think it might fold to like a mardu blitz style deck with 12+ one drops and mardu ascendancy which ive also been working on as a backup. Its still in the works but I like the numbers so far.
[deck]
creatures

4 mantis rider
4 satyr firedancer

instant/sorceries

4 jeskai charm
3 stoke the flames
2 arc lightning
4 magma jet
4 lightning strike
4 deflecting palm
4 mindswipe

enchantments

4 chained to the rocks

lands
2 battlefield forge
2 shivan reef
4 temple of enlightenment
10 mountain
2 island
3 plains

sideboard
3 suspension field
2 chandra
1 keranos
1 arc lightning
3 scouring sands
1 man confluence
4 eidolon of the great revel
[/deck]

BiddingMaster

I really just want Treasure Cruise to be Ancestral Recall.

dont we all.

BiddingMaster

Thread has been amusing - how are you guys justifying 4x Searing Blood or 4x Deflecting Palm main-deck in an unknown meta?

we take what was good from block and extrapolate from there. We dont really know 100% for sure what the meta will be but id rather not sit on my thumbs and wait for the pros to build my deck for me whil i watch everyone else play fnm. I want to play magic and when the format becomes defines ill retune the deck. gotta start from somewhere ya know.

BiddingMaster

after some consideration im actually going to put eidolon of the great revel into the maindeck and switch out satyr firedancers.

BiddingMaster

Why is the deck running Frontier Bivuoac instead of Mystic Monastery?

lifegain i guess

BiddingMaster

This deck actually looks good, kudos on sticking Mantis Rider in burn when everyone else was waiting for some creature-tempo shell to emerge. You need to smooth out the numbers though and probably drop Mindswipe from this list entirely.

I actually built this deck the way nicholas heel said was one of the three ways decks are built. You can build around a card, you can build around a synergy or you can go back into the past and recreate a simillar deck. I just took what we were loosing from burn with ravnica and adding cards with simillar effects from the new set. As far as im concerned this deck belongs to all of us. Its not my deck because countless other have spent many hours into the morning testing and playing modo and talking about standard
burn. I would not be where I am today without the help of this forum and the great minds we have assembled.

BiddingMaster

Im going to say this with the least amount of venom I can hold back. Noone on this forum needs to talk to anyone else the way we have done so far on this thread. Its poison and does neither of us any good. I personally do not like where this is going and im personaly getting pissed off at the lack of respect im seeing towards other members of the forum and myself. Im not a child or a fucking dog and I will not be treated as such. I understand your frustration maverick but that does not give you the right to basically call this forum useless. If it is then why waste your time which is money to most people posting here. I do not appreciate the increasing amount of venom being thrown at me from khaospawn and I certainly dont think lp should have reacted to maverick the way he did. I get that we all come here with our opinions that we have reasons for defending and we have egos to protect but goddamnit we are diestoremoval.com.
We came here for one reason. To be better at magic and engage in discussions about cards and discuss deck strategies. Ive been guilty as well on this thread and others, ive been prone to downright disrepecting people and their ideas and their very self worth. Its easy to be rude to eachother because we sit states, countries, and continents away but if we were all sitting in a room together i doubt we would act so childishly towards eachother. This thread in turning into a shit throwing contest and im sick of it. It would like to come here and have an adult conversation with people over card choices and strategy. That is all

BiddingMaster

I think we can put the deflecting palm and mindswipe debate to rest. Until the format is defined, who knows what will be a good build or a bad one. This is just where im starting off with my metagame in mind. I expecting large tap out style midrange decks to be the go to decks that people are going to immediatley see as good. The reason being is that in block thats kind of what happened and courser/caryatid are going to define the format. I just want to hold up mana with mindswipe so that when they tap out to play their nissas or whatever we just counter and deal some damage to buy us draw steps to set up our lands so we can start unloading spells into their face. This is also why I think deflecting palm will be good. Id like to buy time to get more lands so I can sequence my spells in a way that just kills them instead of blindly trying to race my opponent. Id rather play a game where I get to try to determine the outcome
more than just playing burn spells. Im not looking to count to 20 and the game be over, I want to actually be able to interact with my opponent on a deeper lvl. Everyone is eventually going to make their own decklist that plays to their strengths. I talked to lazerburn about this and why so many people play the same archetype but never get close to having the same deck card for card but each of them do well. I think is because you need to warp your deck to fit your individual needs. Thanks lp for providing a decklist. I was hoping to be able to find room for sarkhan but I was not sure how good it would be because we have almost no creatures so against black decks it can just die sometimes though 5 mana haste and cant die in combat or burn spells is appealing. This new format could easilly hate out mindswipe but ill run it until it proves worthless. its not like losing a few fnms because of it will break my bank anyway.

BiddingMaster

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12049 - second deck. I don't think this is much better. Swan Song + Searing Blood was cute though.

Mindswipe and Deflecting Palm look like cards that swap in vs. control or aggro, respectively. Having 4x of each would be kinda funny in a mirror match.

I think in general, 3 color burn/tempo is going to be dicey. It might have to wait for allied pain lands. And a shock reprint. What about Rx artifacts?

lolz i did it first. rx artifacts in this tempo game seems like loosing tempo just to gain it back later. at the cost of the damage that might have just won you a game by a small margin but this kind of deck works off of small margins.

BiddingMaster

it's not a card someone should be told to "go back to Salvation" for wanting to try.
Except that nobody said that.

But I did say this:
At best, Palm will be a niche sideboard card

lol khaos wrote that if i was going to vehemently defend my descisions while im getting "sound advice" that a card is bad is why i should go back to mtgsally. It
had nothing to do with a card choice.

BiddingMaster

im trying to find some common ground here to we dont just keep butting heads

BiddingMaster

This deck is not fast enough to be a dedicated burn deck. It is going to have to have tempo deck. So technically I should have labeled the deck as jeskai tempo. Deflecting palm generates tempo by relieving the decks main problem of needing to stay alive and point damage at our opponents face. Is that a fair enough assessment?

BiddingMaster

boros burn is called a burn deck but zemanjaski claims that is a tempo deck. we have cards that are reactive and proactive and cards that can act both. ok, ill concede that this deck is bad and I probably should be working on a control instead. Now I want you to define for me what defines as a reactive card and proactive card and give examples of why as I have.

BiddingMaster

My main point is that Palm isn't proactive

It's not even removal

It doesn't do anything

At least removal eliminates a threat while Palm allows the threat to remain! How is this good!?

Comparing removal and Palm is like apples and oranges

im trying to get to the point of identifying what is and what is not proactive and reactive. define to me what is a proactive card and a reactive card.

BiddingMaster

for this debate to continue we have to agree on whether or not removal and deflecting palm are both reactionary cards which is your main point against it. I consider reactionary cards to be any form of removal/coutnerspells/bounce spells since these card require targets that are not always present. Your opponent has to do something for us to use these cards so therefore they are all reactionary just like preventing damage and redirecting it. How do you feel about this evaluation khaos?

BiddingMaster

if they are not doing anyting that is advantage us

BiddingMaster

all removal is reactionary so saying one reactionary card is bad over another on the same hand of being reacitonary doesnt say anything at all. The only cards that are not reactionary are things when played on an empty board advance the board state.

BiddingMaster

The problem is that, like mindswipe, it's just a lava spike. Burn that ONLY goes to the face is unplayable outside of dedicated burn decks and that's what deflecting palm does.

If you would like me to give a detailed explanation, I'll copy/paste a facebook post I made related to mindswipe that's similarly applicable here.

id like any feedback possible. Deflecting palm if it gets to deal three damage to the face then it would in fact have to prevent three damage so its a lava spike plus a healing salve. which in the grand scheme of things is not so bad if all we need to do is assemble enough incidental damage with mantis rider and burn spells. I think mindswipe is the most speculative card on the list and might deserve the cut but im
hoping im right like I was taking eidolon of the great revel in the main expecting alot of junk at my last scg open. Im guessing I should explain the format im hoping this do to well in to give you guys a better picture of how this deck will be positioned in the new meta.

BiddingMaster

You sure do use a lot of "ifs"

well what do you want me to do? I cant accurately predict how card x will perform in format y. If I could id be the best magic player ever for the first three months of a new format. Every card on this list is only good if the format im prepping for comes to fruition which i expect alot of durdly midrange creature decks. If my predictions are right then my cards are good and if they are not then my deck will changed or be discarded. This list is just the starting point to test to see how cards perform against a test gauntlet of the style of decks that I expect to face. Eventually when I have the time and the money to travel ill be playing this configuration with proxies to see how they work. None of this
is tested yet.

BiddingMaster

If its only a shitty lightning helix 25% of the time and a lightning helix plus 75% of the time ill take those odds.

BiddingMaster

and thanks for all the support guys.

BiddingMaster

Idk why not just roll 4 color burn and add some black up in that shit

assuming it could work what would black add to the deck that would fix and inherent problem with the list?

BiddingMaster

4 Mindswipe is horrible, also I would consider mainboarding Eidolon in an unknown format

i agree that there are going to be matches where we have like three mindswipe in hand and we just die. For testing purposes to see how bad they are in multiples i want to run the max. Im thinking that if bulky midrange decks become the norm for the metagame I can see where countering nissa's, dragons, polukranos, that 5/4 that drains life would be good. The reason mindswipe appeals to me is if nissa and grey merchant become a problem in the new format its a nice answer for either one. we have lost the ability to negate life gain and I feel like people might be playing enough green mana sources to justify nylea's disciple and there was a mono black devotion
deck that didnt quite top 8 and I think it went top 25 though. Im also really worried about the aggro matchup and i think eidolon shines best in a known meta rather than an unkown one.

BiddingMaster

Deflecting Palm is too reactive.

the same can be said of chained to the rocks since it only hits creatures and is situational. I like deflecting palm because at worst its a shitty lightning helix and possibly suck a huge blowout. I think the upside is worth the risk. Even the control deck in this format i suspect will run some number of creatures since our sweeper in 5 cmc. and if bug becomes the next big control deck they will have to have creatures because we can easilly kill planeswalkers.

BiddingMaster

Idk why not just roll 4 color burn and add some black up in that shit

we technically are 4 colors since we need such a heavy commitment to basic mountains to play any number of chained to the rocks. 4 may be too many but I have to start from somewhere and 4 seems interesting.

BiddingMaster

[deck]SPELLS

4 lightning strike
3 stoke the flames
4 chained to the rocks
4 magma jet
4 jeskai charm
4 mindswipe
2 searing blood
4 deflecting palm

CREATURES

4 mantis rider
4 satyr firedancer

LANDS

2 temple of triumph
2 temple of epiphany
4 flooded strand
10 mountain
3 plains
2 island

SIDEBOARD

2 scouring sands
3 chandra pyromaser
4 eidolon of the great revel
1 mana confluence
3 suspension field
2 searing blood[/deck]

so far with what has been spoiled I think we still have a shot at a post rotation burn deck that is similar in build to the one that we currently are using in standard. Though sadly we dont have young pyromancer and chandra's phoenix anymore im wondering if mantis rider and satyr firedancer can take their places until we find something better. This is just a rough draft of the deck and im going to proxy it up and play with my local play group.
Hopefully I can work out enough of the decks problems namely the mana base and i am playing against a gauntlet of fast aggro and the block decks we have seen from the pro tour journey into nyx will give me an idea of how to tweak it and find out if its worth the money to shell out for it. Hopefully you guys find this deck as interesting as I and are enthusiastic to find a new cool burn deck for the future format.

Dies to Removal

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(POST ROTATION) JESKAI BURN