[Primer] Boros Burn

[LaZerBurn]

I played against a version of this with PyroRed - it had Assemble MD and the Phoenix recursion was frightening once it kicked in.

[Narcasus]

Played this at FNM yesterday and it was really enjoyable to play. I went 4-1 on the night

[deck]
Creatures
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Young Pyromancer

Other Spells
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Skullcrack
4 Shock
3 Warleader's Helix
4 Toil // Trouble

Land
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
9 Mountain
4 Temple of Silence

Sideboard
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Boros Reckoner
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Assemble the Legion
2 wear // tear
2 Chandra, Pyromancer
2 Burning Earth
[/deck]

The night started out against Mono Black Devotion with green splash

Game 1 was a hand loaded with burn and i just started throwing at his face as fast as a could.
His start was a bit slow going turn 3 connections into turn 4 demon. I chained the demon but he was able to abrubt decay it
the next turn
That was all i needed though as the extra turn it bought me gave me enough time to burn him out.

Game 2, with a hand of a few burn 3 lands, assemble the legion, and a chained my game plan was control for the most part and let assemble do the work.
I used the scry lands in hand to purposefully help me hit 5 lands on turn 5, also drawing into 2 toil // trouble that both hit him for 5 and burning away his one rat with a mortars.
I started throwing burn at his face as he had to deal with assemble. By the time he hit a golgari charm to get rid of it, he was too low and i burn him out.

2-0
1-0

Sideboarding: -4 shock -2 magma jet +2 assemble +2 wear // tear +2 mortars

Match two was against a WW with red splash for boros charm.

Game 1 was YP$ doing work, just burning out every creature he played and beating face with tokens. Not much else to say.
Game 2 was alot tighter race, he had an explosive start and had me down to 4 life when he called to give protection ffrom red and swing
for lethal, but i responded with warleaders helix to stablize behind YP$ tokens, Pheonix, and Chandra's +0
It was a close hard fought game and was alot of fun.

2-0
2-0

Sideboarding: -4 Skullcrack -4 Toi l// Trouble -1 Boros Charm +2 Mortars +2 Chandra +3 Anger +2 Reckoners

Match 3 was against big Boros Devotion.

Game 1, i honestly felt like my deck didn't even stand a chance. i had too many non creature burn and he had answers to YP$ and his creatures were so big my tokens meant nothing
I have no main deck answers to dragon so i ended up having to double burn it out of the sky, leaving me behind with nyxthos purphuros and mogis to finish me off.

Game 2 Felt much better, i was keeping him off creatures, srcying away lands, landed a Chandra to draw me cards but there was one problem. I scryed away 4 lands and drew into 9 total on the game. I flooded out pretty bad, once going +0 into chandra, playing chandra +0 again into a scry land. It was feel a bit silly by the end but i felt
competitive game 2 even though i felt i wanted more lifegain.

0-2
2-1

Sideboard: same as WW

Match 4 was against Boros agro with the paladin the 3/3 angle that gains and deal 3 damage on batalion and reckoners and the like.

Game 1 was me muliganing a hand and keeping it when i should have gone down to 5 buyt was still on slight tilt from the series before. I ended up losing quite badly but it was compeltely my fault.

Game 2 was me keeping a solid 7, burning out his creatures, helixing to stabilize my life some and letting chandra's +0 kick in for card advantage and let pheonix go over the top for the win.

Game 3 we both go down to 6, but i have all the answers in chains and Anger and helix, letting two pheonix do work at the end of the game as he attempts to try to burn me out, bringing me to 5 in the last turn. Playing 2 helix that game won it for me.

2-1
3-1

Sideboard: -4 Boros charm -4 Skullcrack -1 Toil//Trouble

Match 5 was a weird blue white heroic deck. It basicly tried to
play like a hexproof deck with the white protectrion spells. It didnt go well for him with my deck being so much burn. Not much to even writ about

2-0
4-1

Overall thoughts: I found that toil trouble is more useful against agro than boros charm, the extra draw came into effect in the Boros agro deck where charm would have done nothing. I also want Chandra mainboard, i feel i need the extra card draw or at least make them 2 for 1 themselves off of her. My thoughts are to push 2 skullcracks to the board and bring in the chandras main. I also want more lifesteal. Every agro matchup came down to me either gaining life and stabilizing or dying because i didn't have it. i think i am going to try 1 more helix in the side with 3 spark troopers, cutting the wear // tear and the assemble. also cutting 1 reckoner for one more Anger as well as i want to test 2 chain in the side with 2 anger in the main. This may be more of a meta call as most people play agro at my FNM. Last thought is that i loved every scry
land, being able to sift through my deck for the answers i needed was amazing all night long.

[magicdownunder]

Preparing to eat my own words now, RWB Burn won mocs11 - piloted by Anssi A.

Going to test this deck next.

[Keftenk]

21 land version?

[magicdownunder]

21 land version?

I think so, since he got mana ****ed heaps, his SB was great, he was running YP$, Boros Reckoner, Firedrinker Satyr and Spark Trooper.

I'm really looking forward to when they post the results .

[Keftenk]

Should be curious to see, I tried playing the 21 land version from the Standard Daily Events but it was brutal with the consistent mulligans. Perhaps it was just bad luck. I may play around with it more when I get home as well...

[magicdownunder]

[deck]Anssi A MOCS11 Winning List[/deck]

I watched all of his games, he went 4-2 for the first half (like me, but he faced two monoU which he slaughtered) his standings put him just barely into Top8 - where he won 3-0.

This is a great cheap decks to get started into MODO I'm not sure if its the best deck though.

[zemanjaski]

That can be tuned a lot, but it's a good start.

[Helios]

That list is amusing as fuck. The singletons make me smile.

[Pedros]

So meta deck?

I played with big dega version (black for exava only in mb), went 3-2, deck seemed ok.

Edit:

I saw top4 replays. He SB in young pyromancers and spark troopers vs Esper Control oO. Also mortars for blood barons. Cant imagine what did he sb out.

To be honest I like this deck a lot.

Edit2:

This Mocs showed really interesting decklist that arent popular yet.

GB Agro/Midrange (Troll, varolz, polukranos, gift of orzhova + efficient B and BG removal,
naya hexproof,
UW control with archangel of thune (went 2nd).

[Keftenk]

Link to the replays?

[magicdownunder]

@Pedros, most of those decks are fairly common you just need to queue against the grinders.

The exception being the sweet Burn and UW tech, Angel over Paladin not sure if I agree with the choice but whatever works.

[Narcasus]

Played with my updated list i talked about in my last post in an 8 man.

2-0'd AIR

MB anger won me game 1 hands down
sparktrooper helped me stabilize on life game 2
Chandra was huge both games.

2-0'd MBC
7 dmg trouble plus pyro swinging in is a great start with some more burn and a chain for his 3 drop made it an easy game
He sided in all the hand disruption, but a couple pheonix and a 5 dmg trouble while he stalled for a turn on 3 lands made it a quick game 2

Split the finals for 4 packs each. Happy with the results, still feel like i need to tweak the sideboard more. Thinking cutting 1 spark trooper for a single assemble the legions. While siding i had 1 too many for agro and 1 not enough for MBC

[Bonzaijoe]

I have been playing a version of Boris burn since rotation. The only noticeable difference is my inclusion of guttersnipe. I love the deck and I am currently 15-4 with it. 3 losses coming before I put chained in the deck. I am so excited to see other people running this.

[Narcasus]

How has guttersnipe been working for you? I like the fact i have so few cards decks can use their removal on and not sure i would like guttersnipe but i may have to test it.

Did another 8 man last night, lost in the first round to MBD

Game 1 was him turn 2 double thoughtsieze into turn 3 specter into turn 4 demon into turn 5 gary into turn 6 gary. After the double thoughtseize, he pulled most of my answers out of my head and i couldnt keep up.

Game 2 was a longer game and my adition of a 1 of assemble the legion really came through and help me seal the deal on game 2

Game 3 was me holding a hand of burn with a gameplan of just burning him out. I had 2 scry lands in hand and had every intention of scrying towards more land with 5 burn spells already. I only hit one more land the rest of the game and needed to hit either a chain or a land to get enough damage fast enough or live long enough against double demons.
at 22 outs over about 3 turns or so, I'll toss the loss to variance.

Overall happy with the small change going down to 3 sparktroopers and 1 assemble the legion and looking forward to grinding some more games tonight.

[Elricity]

I'm trading for a playset of Anger of the Gods but want to say it's an unnecessary crutch for the deck. Anyone else cutting them yet?

I don't like Guttersnipe costing 3. I'm still stubborn and don't like playing these kind of cards without getting some potential value out of them same turn. YP --> doom blade --> shock is easier to pull off and even makes them devote another card for the token.

[Aodh]

Right; of the three spell-loving critters, Guttersnipe's probably the worst. The others are literal 2-or-more-for-1's, whereas he's a 1-for-1 with a Shock attached.

I think you're right that AotG is out of place. YP$ and all of the removal are already very good against aggressive decks. Applying the same ideas as the above lists, I'd have:

[deck]Critters
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix

Value
4 Shock
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Skullcrack
4 Boros Charm
1 Flames of the Firebrand
3 Toil // Trouble
3 Warleader's Helix

Don't Like Fatties
4 Chained to a Rock

Dat Mana Doe
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
2 Godless Shrine
2 Temple of Silence
9 Mountain

Sideboard
4 Mizzium Mortars
3 Flames of the Firebrand
4 Boros Reckoner
1 Toil // Trouble
1 Mutavault
1 Assemble the Legion
1 Wear // Tear[/deck]

[Elricity]

Unless it's availability issues, you'll be more comfortable swapping the shrines to 2 more temples. The scry is actually important since you're basically playing a combo deck and the tapped portion isn't relevant. I would drop two sb FotF for a couple spark troopers. It's surprisingly relevant and has different answers than Helix with an upside of boros charm.

I want to test mixing some of the one drops in there but they still haven't come in yet. Screw 3 weeks lost in USPS.

[magicdownunder]

The only reason why the mocs list isn't running 3-4 Anger of the Gods is because he was playing a "day 2 event" if your going to FNM or MODO you're bound to face at least one or two Gx, Rx or a weenies list.

You need at least 3 Anger of the Gods, in the SB.

[Narcasus]

I would agree with the angers, they are a necessary and have really enjoyed them game 1 as well. On a fast start for an agro deck when you are on the draw, its near impossible to one for one them to death before you die yourself. At least thats the experience ive felt so far

[Elricity]

Well, I did certainly just need them against the BTE builds. Turn 2 cackler, 2 bte, FFS. He put up a good fight afterwards.

3 seems the right amount with the amount of scry we have because late game, it is going to be a dead card since you should have your own board established. I do want to run some test games dropping it and/or FotF to fit in some satyrs though.

I have used it a couple times as a finisher with reckoners.

Eating my hat on wanting to cut cacklers.

I'm on this at the moment, admittedly most of it borrowed from Z and other sources.

[deck]
//Creature (9)
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Rakdos Cackler
1 Young Pyromancer

//Enchantment (4)
4 Chained to the Rocks

//Instant (23)
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
4 Skullcrack
3 Warleader's Helix

//Sorcery (3)
1 Flames of the Firebrand
2 Toil // Trouble

//Land (21)
9 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4
Temple of Triumph

Sideboard
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Spark Trooper
2 Toil // Trouble
2 Young Pyromancer[/deck]

On the play, I'll board in the extra troubles against mono blue but I board them out on the draw. Never actually lived the dream of skullcrack + anger vs MoW yet.

[Aodh]

My buddy and I ran several versions of Boros burn when INN was in. We didn't have any sweepers at our disposal and did fine against BTE decks (and trust me, they were way more popular back then). I think Flames of the Firebrand is just as good against AIR and Barely Boros as Anger of the Gods without nonboing with our own creatures. I haven't tested at all with the current brews, but I just don't think the slagstorms are necessary. Consider PyroWhite: they have almost the same post board deck as this and not a single list has AotG in it...

Re: Spark Trooper; I've played my fair share of this bastard (even MD). He really is a house, but with the resurgence of FS creatures and all of the aggro decks packing 2-4 shocks, I think he's really lackluster. They can't play around WLH as easily, and it actually gets us CA in the process.

Re: lands; again, no testing so far, but I don't see such a mana-hungry deck operating
on more than 6 tap lands. Will consider this in testing.

[Elricity]

I suppose the main argument I can see for anger isn't so much surviving, because you can but, post board, you have 4-5 less creatures than the traditional pyro builds so you don't quite have the creature volume to close the game if you're 1 for 1'ing all their cards to stablize. The deck doesn't run Chandra to get the card advantage engine going either. I personally want to try satyrs and/or Ashleys but I want to heavily test against the red and green devotion builds without anger first. What would you put in Anger's place?

The reason for the 3/2 split of helix vs trooper is they require somewhat different answers. Also, you have the slim chance of charming trooper which is +4 damage, +8 life over more helix. Maybe it's my opponents being bad but you tend to be able to push openings for him. First strike creatures are going to get burned away so it's a non factor. Removal is the concern so you have to get them
tapping out on their turn.

Test it before you worry about the temples. You're likely not needing to cast on curve and fixing all your draws becomes vital as you're a quick combo deck. I've seen no need to have the 22nd land but you certainly could.

[Narcasus]

I have personally been playing two chandras mainboard lately and have loved her. Against agro, it lets me one for one all day and then slam a chandra as a must answer before i drown them in cards. Against control, i feel it gives me the extra reach and another, answer this card or i will throw burn at your face until you die. Mono black has been a bit awkward, but she has still performed great more often than not. So often you want to just become a pure burn deck against mono black that you dont have time to cast chandra and would rather cast more burn. The times when your hand is double chain, double mortar, she is amazing since you are playing the control deck at that point. Still slightly awkward though since they will probably have a heros downfall just sitting in hand.

As far as the agro decks running shock to counter troopers, they are almost always casting at our face once they get a hint of what is going on. Their
gameplan is to try to rush us with every card in hand and kill us before we burn away every creature and then their face. Maybe it is because i love to play this deck as more of a control deck though. I only play it as a combo burn deck if the hand is perfect for it., or its game 1 and i have no removal against mono black/blue.

[Elricity]

What does your creature/land package look like? My problem with her is I was loading up too heavy on four drops post board, her +1 didn't represent that much damage without the 20 creature suite, and it was more difficult to protect her.

[Narcasus]

[deck]
Creatures
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Young Pyromancer

Other Spells
2 Chained to the Rocks
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Chandra' pyromancer
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
2 Skullcrack
4 Shock
3 Warleader's Helix
4 Toil // Trouble

Land
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
9 Mountain
4 Temple of Silence

Sideboard
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Chained
1 Boros Reckoner
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Assemble the Legion
3 spark trooper
2 Skullcrack
2 Burning Earth
[/deck]

It has 5 4-drops MB, but with the scry lands, i haven't had an issue yet. Depending on the hand, im digging for lands, or, if its all low burn and YP$ , im scrying away extra land and going for an earlier kill. I have found how the deck plays each game is highly dependant on its opening hand, very much like the pyrored and white
builds. I have only played about 50 games with it so far, but am very happy at this time. There were too many games i would one for one and run out of gas with limited ways for CA, and chandra helps fix those.

I rarely ever 1 chandra, my entire reasoning for playing her is as a draw engine. Every other spell in my deck kills things, i just want her to get me more of those spells.

Something i've considered is cutting an anger in the side for another land for when i do go heavier on the 4 drops and decide to play heavier control. You normally only need 1 anger a game anyways, but you do need it semi early.

[Helios]

I'm not saying you aren't playing enough lands, but be aware that "I haven't had any problems" is not sufficient reason to justify a lower land count. Use numbers.

[Narcasus]

I'm not saying you aren't playing enough lands, but be aware that "I haven't had any problems" is not sufficient reason to justify a lower land count. Use numbers.

He asked for my list and questioned multiple 4 drops, i gave him my personal experiences with my list since that's all i have. I am not saying it is the correct way and specificly said its been a limited number of games. If i knew how to account for 8 scry lands when accounting for probability, i would most likely give it a shot to see what the numbers come out with. If you know how to calculate that, i would love to learn.

[Elricity]

@ Narc - Yes, my experience is scrying until I'm safely set up on either lands or spells and then riding it out. My concern is that loaded up on too much 4+ spells, you can be durdling with nothing in hand to safely cast. Particularly post board vs something like Esper? You're presumably dropping shock, chain, and anger for 2 crack, 2 mortar, 2 burning earth, 2 spark trooper? Suddenly you have 9 4 CMC spells. It's just too much.

@ Helios - I am trying to wrap my head around an easy math way to mesh the hypergeometric of lands vs scry and the best I can come up with is % chance to see the card, count it as extra cards to draw, and reverse run back to see lands. I'm not counting Toil for this.

Get back to you when I'm done playing with Excel.

[Elricity]

This is ugly math, but it's what I got so someone else can make a judgment call.

90% chance to hit one scry card giving 11 draws by turn 4. This gives 60% chance you hit land 4.
60% chance to hit two scry / 66% chance to hit turn 4.
33% chance to hit three scry / 75% chance to hit turn 4.

For point of reference, with 8 4+ CMC spells, your chance of having 2 in opening hand is 25%. This drops to 10% if only running 5.

Discuss?

[Narcasus]

You also have scry from magma jet so its slightly better than your numbers as well. Do you feel you need to hit land 4 on turn 4?

[Elricity]

If your chance of drawing multiple 4's is low? Not really that important you hit the land early. It's why a single dragon on 22 lands isn't a big deal because if it is in your opening hand, you still have a number of playable cards. If your chance of having your starting hand clogged with multiple 4's and with a mediocre chance at casting them goes up though, it becomes a crisis in a hurry.

You have 12 4+ CMC spells in your 75. How many are expecting to have in your deck game 2 or 3?

I decided not to worry about scry 2 vs scry 1 from jet/temple. The average difference just isn't that much.

On a sidenote, have you tried starting 2 toil and 2 in board? It's not great every game.

[Narcasus]

As far as toil/ trouble goes, it is something i could test with switching toil with skullcrack in the board. I like the fact it becomes sign in blood late game though and has won me a few games going turn 3 7 damage, turn 4 5 damage. I think the biggest draw to me is it does something for me game one where i need to interact and become control game 1 by letting me draw cards if i hit black mana, where skullcrack sits in my hand as their guys kill me. My FNM is very agro heavy though, so my opinions might be skewed. My initial gameplan will be to have all 12 4+cmc spells against esper, my thought process there is i want every spell to be as high of impact as possible and the game is going to go long unless i draw really well or they stumble, so i want my deck to be able to go punch for punch later on. I don't have enough experience against control with this deck to know if this plan is way off yet.

[Elricity]

I'm not keen on Assemble vs esper since they have Jace and DSphere.

But yeah, 12 4 CMC spells on 21 lands? Durdling is not what you want to do vs them.

[LP, of the Fires]

The only reason why the mocs list isn't running 3-4 Anger of the Gods is because he was playing a "day 2 event" if your going to FNM or MODO you're bound to face at least one or two Gx, Rx or a weenies list.

You need at least 3 Anger of the Gods, in the SB.

Problem with anger is that you're generally picking off dudes one at a time anyways and by the time you cast anger, it's usually only a 1-4-1.

[zemanjaski]

Reckoner is just better in the matchups you want Anger anyway.

[magicdownunder]

I havn't played the deck myself so if you guys think Anger is bad so be it, I would have thought saving burns for dome seems key in this deck .

[Elricity]

Yep, been testing again. Cutting Anger. It's not that it's bad...it's just not good enough?

It kills Carytids and has a real chance of killing MoW with skullcracks so there is that. But mostly I'd be afraid of it being a dead card or nuking my own guys. I know one game it saved my bacon. All the other times I drew it was "oh, that's neat to have" but nothing I honestly needed to end a game. Meta call perhaps.

If you get a chance to play the deck in games 2 or 3, you'll see.

On another note, played against a guy testing MDU's Boros aggro deck with the 2 Stormbreath on Cockatrice. Gave the guy style points.




I still think Chandra isn't great here but she keeps floating in and out of my sideboard.

Other than the obvious, is the singleton peak eruption I see floating in the lists there just because? I bounce between some number of satyrs, peak eruption, and Chandra at the moment.

[zemanjaski]

I've cut Chandra. If like room for more peak eruption, but only have space for a singleton.

[Elricity]

I can squeeze it up to 2 if I do this:

[deck]4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Rakdos Cackler
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Firedrinker Satyr

4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
4 Skullcrack
3 Warleader's Helix
2 Toil // Trouble

9 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph


Sideboard
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Spark Trooper
2 Toil // Trouble
2 Young Pyromancer
1 Firedrinker Satyr
2 Peak Eruption[/deck]

Kind of been liking the single flames though. Ash Zealot's an idea too for the midrange nonsense but I don't think the mana is as friendly to her. I'll cruise the tables at FNM and make a judgment call from there. Lot of green at that store.