[R] Burn vs [B,U] Discard,control

[tomi1025]

Hello i casual play in magic mono red burn deck with my friend.

This is my deck

1 Caldera Hellion
3 Hell's Thunder
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Volcanic Fallout
4 Ball Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Plated Geopede
4 Burst Lightning
4 Goblin Guide
4 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Teetering Peaks
13 Mountain
2 Quenchable Fire
3 Smash to Smithereens
SB: 3 Chain Reaction
SB: 3 Blazing Torch
SB: 4 Banefire
SB: 3 Dragon's Claw


He played mono black vampire deck, he couldnt win with me so he splash blue color and add
counterspells like dispel, spell pierce, flashfreeze
and from discard cards he has duress, hypnotic specter,mind rot,
and vampires vampire nighthawk with lifelink, vampire lacerator , vampire hexmage with firststrike.

And my question,s is can I win mono red burn against deck like this?
What i can modify in my mono R deck to win i will listen to all sugestions

[Kappu1]

I would say ditch Hellspark Elemental and also Quenchable Fire for starters since he can deal with those and there are to many speed bumps for Hellspark. The worst part of your matchup with him is the Duress and Specters because you don't want to be in top deck mode for very long or he will stabalize and win. Deal with the creatures turn for turn so that you keep them out of your way. You don't run Ball Lightning or Kargan Dragonlord? I think those are must anymore for very good burn deck. With the cards in M11 that are a bit more punishing to RDW it's pry time to maybe start splashing a color. I think red is viable there are just some really bad match-ups for you as well now.

[seba1983]

ok where do i start ^^

first off burn and red deck wins are tow seperate things.

your thread title says burn so i'll talk about that. even though your deck looks a lot more like red deck wins ^^.

burn is a very strong deck because of several factors:

1. almost no creatures leaving the opponents removal as dead cards

2. a very fast clock (the time you need to kill)

3. it has a very ineavtable clock. even if 2-3 spells are countered it will draw more burn and then win.

4. next to no non-basic lands. this is important as cards like wasteland, stifle or back to basics are no threat to your mana base.

looking back at your deck its now pretty clear to see that it does not look like burn ... lots of creatures, fetchlands etc.

if you realy want to play burn you want cards that say for R deal 3 damage to your opponent. lightningbolt is your best spell to do that. that wont be enough though. you want these too:

lavaspike (yes its unconditional 3 dmg for R to your opp)
riftbolt
chainlightning (these are very expensive so you probably want to replace them)

thats only 16 cards though so we need more ... next come 2cc spells that are realy worth the extra mana you invest in them:

keldon maruaders (up to 5 dmg out of 1 card wow)
magmajet (what 2 dmg for 2 mana ? how can this be good ? scry 2 is poweful since it ensures you keep drawing the good burn you need ... trust me its very powerful)
hellspark elemental (in burn this card realy shines. it is a potential 6 dmg from a single card whilst still beeing pretty fast 3 dmg early. realy helps that you dont run out of steam)

hmm 28 cards still not a compleat deck ...

off to cc3:

volcanic fallout / flambreak (its no counter + instant vs. kill stuff with toughness three, depends on the decks you face. flamebreak deals with nighthawk, fallout is imune to dispell etc.)
sulforic vortex (burn for 2 every turn and make sure lifegain is not an issue to you? used to be more of a sb choice but has proven very good main)

lets say you run both as 4-of then were looking at 36 cards almost there ^^

cc4/5 - nothing

cc6 fireblast (if you ever hardcast this the game already went very badly ^^ otherwise its free 4 dmg for the kill and is crutial for those turn 3 kills)

40 cards

add 20 mountains done

in legacy you would not run the cc2+ spells always as 4-of thus makeing room for cards like price of progress (when most opponents only play non-basics this card rules so much) flamejavalin only sees play as a metagame choice vs. counterbalance and bant-survial (neither of importance to you i guess)
shardvolly is suprisingly good but not as a 4-off and fireblast should go down to 3 then too.

incinerate is already too slow and everything else is even poorer ... you can go with gobline guide or incinerate as a substitue for the chainlightning though.

you can also go down to 19 or even 18 mountains if you like to add an extra spell or two.

there is the alternative to build the deck with 3 babarian rings if you want but i would swap out the hellspark in that case. flames of the blood hand can be an alternative to the vortex.

well thats burn ... kills turn 3/4 is pretty easy to play, unbelivably consistant (sadly this also means somewhat boring ^^) and if you every feel like batteling at a tourny find your next legacy tournament and play with the slightly older (perhaps wiser) generation of magic players

feedback would be welcome

[tomi1025]

seba1983 thank you for your post. My deck is more rdw than burn i know it, I wold like have burn deck but in t2. You have describe most deadly and fast red spells in all time but in extended / legacy format.

It is possible to make deck like this in t2 format?

There isnt many burn spells similar to lightining bolt in t2 cheap fast and deadly.

About manabase, I always think that fetch lands are good cards, I must think about it.

Which format is better t2 (new cards) or extended/ legacy (powerfull but expensive cards) ?

[Kappu1]

Red Burn is really hard in T2 even with all the burn spells they are just not as good as the older cards. I think in T2 you really need to be running some kind of creatures, but that is personal preference just seeing that there are alot of burn that could end up being dead cards (Seering Blaze) if you play someone with no creatures like control.

Remeber also that whey you invest in a Legacy Deck that you also don't have to buy cards every 3 months when T2 gets updated, so the initial cost is more expensive but in the long run it's a whole lot cheaper.

Best T2 Burn

Lightning Bolt (cheap and effective)
Staggershock (decent because it rebounds)
Burst Lightning (can be kicked for a win)
Hell's Thunder (creature, but would consider it burn)
Seering Blaze (dead against creatureless decks)
Banefire (good late game finisher)
Earthquake (situational if you are low on life)
Forked Bolt (good against creature acceleration decks)
Punishing Fire (decent, but if the gain alot of life it's worthless)
Quenchable Fire (awesome if they don't run blue mana)
Volcanic Footing (maybe)
Unstable Footing (maybe)

I also like the look of Elixir of Immortality in a burn deck it's psuedo card advantage when you get to shuffle all your burn spells into a deck that has already been thinned of lands maybe run it as a two of and also yeilds 5 life if you face some type of fast creature deck.

[seba1983]

the nice things about burn in legacy is that its realy realy cheap. the fetchlands you have in your deck are probably worth more than legacy burn ^^. the only expensive card is chainlightning. appart from that even the rares are cheap. flambreak, sulforic vortex are about all the rares you need and they should be no more than 1$.

even in your sideboard stuff like poweder ceg and pithing needle are the most expensive card you need. neither is needed more than 3 times and these are no more than 2-3$ a pice.

you should be able to build a burndeck without chainlightning for arround 35$ adding about 36-48$ for the 4 chain lightning.

yes a lot of legacy decks have a high initial cost to aquire but burn is an exception ... it only costs about 50% of jund in standard ^^