"Budget" Burn:
You know what? Sometimes Fridays suck. After a long week of grinding at school or work, who has the time or patience to put up with an FNM? Not me. Why not just jam a burn deck in people's faces? Plus, I like burn. I like burn so much that I want to burn me too. You can do it in Legacy, so why not Modern?
Legacy has Flame Rift and so does Modern...kind of.
The Manabase
If burn is too complicated for you then you probably shouldn't be playing Magic. Most of this article will be focused not on playing the burn part, but rather on getting the manabase correct so Tribal Flames hits for max damage. I suppose I could call the deck Tribal Burn, but it just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Boros Charm, Destructive Revelry, and Ancient Grudge are the most important cards that require non-red mana. You'll never need both white and green for the same spell so that's actually where I started the mana base.
What a good place to start the manabase for an essentially monored burn deck!
Temple Garden will take care of the non-red mana. So, working backwards the next two best lands are Blood Crypt and Steam Vents. This combination of shocklands gives you the best access to red mana and 5 basic land types. It won't always work out perfectly, but I think Tribal Flames hitting for 4 should still be pretty good. There's also a Stomping Grounds and Sacred Foundry in there just in case the opponent has a Tectonic Edge or Ghost Quarter. The two mountains are there so you can still get value out of a Path to Exile.
So now let's move to the fetchland portion. Arid Mesa is the king as it can search for any land in the deck. It's important to save these for last to fill any hole the other imperfect fetches make. Scalding Tarn is the next best one. The only land it can't get is Temple Garden. Since Temple Garden is the crux for hitting 5 domain you need to have a plan with the other fetches. Those are Marsh Flats and Misty Rainforest. Those get both get the Temple Garden that Scalding Tarn misses. However, they both miss on finding two of the red shocklands.
Magic riddle: Who can afford all the fetches and yet still want to play a grimy burn deck?
Got all that? It's a little tricky at first but it really isn't too hard. When all else fails remember this: Having enough red mana to cast your hand fast is more important that hitting 5 domain. Tribal Flames doing 4 damage will still be decent.
Wait?!? I think there was a misprint in the decklist.
Tricksy burn players
Nope. Not a misprint. The miser's Mana Leak! Why? Because this deck is for FNMs. Casually make sure that this card is always on top of your face-up deck while you're "making sure" your sideboard is intact before the match starts. This will baffle your opponent. "Wait. Is he playing Lava Spikes with counter magic?" Nope, you're not. Against burn decks, opponents will play their best threats first and fast to race you. Against counter decks, opponents will usually play their weaker spells first to bait out any countermagic.
I wonder if that extra tempo can give me the extra turn burn always says it wants. We'll see. Is it the optimum choice? No. Is it best choice? Absolutely. Build to your play style, even if it's trolly. Listen, you're already playing a burn deck and lost the respect of your peers. Go all-in and troll with a shown Mana Leak.
P.S. Always side it out.
What got cut?
There were some tough cuts to make, especially at the 2-drop slot. Lightning Helix seems very good at first glance. It burns for 3 and gains some of that shockland life back. However, 2 mana for 3 damage isn't enough. All the 2-drop slots deal more damage than that. (I consider Skullcrack to deal about 5 damage, considering the number of Kitchen Finks in the metagame right now.)
Another tough cut was Snapcaster Mage. I really wanted to flash back Tribal Flames but it just wasn't fast enough. Snapcaster comes online as an effective 3 or 4 drop and can only flashback 3-5 damage. I've found that he never really gets the chance to attack either. I instead opted for the Flames of the Blood Hand to hose more life gain.
Not aggressive enough.
Remand isn't good enough either. I had a pretty intense debate with our resident troll brewer Mike Bonkarooni about the merits of bluffing with Remand vs Mana Leak. With Remand, if you draw it you can set your opponent back a turn while drawing a card. That's weird for a burn deck but still not a truly dead play. There's a problem with that though. Opponents will most likely play right through a Remand. Their line of thinking might be, "Well, I have to play my turn 2 Goyf. If it gets Remanded, I'll just play it again next turn because I have to use my mana this turn anyway." However, fearing a Mana Leak, they might not cast the Goyf right away or play a less optimal 2 drop. I never thought I'd spent two paragraphs discussing the merits of one counterspell in an all-in burn list. But, there you have it.
The sideboard
I hate 4 of's in sideboards, but my biggest fear is Leyline of Sanctity. That's why there's 4 Destructive Revelries. That Leyline needs to die. Revelry is a good card too. It does work against Affinity. In fact, affinity is kind of a bad matchup. When Affinity only has to deal 10 damage, they can get it in pretty quick. That's why there's also Ancient Grudges.
Not a good card to see on turn zero.
I like to put 2 of each Grafdigger's Cage and Torpor Orb to shutdown Birthing Pod and Splinter Twin decks. You're not sideboarding out too much burn to slow down the deck and if you do draw the combo hate it will buy you a lot of tempo.
Engineered Explosives seems way too useful with a 5 color manabase. I'm sure I'll find a bunch of uses for it. With all five colors to choose sideboard cards from, I'm probably missing some good ones. I'll find out the hard way while playing at some FMN's.
With that, I'll see you next week and let you know if "Budget" Burn could turn into a real thing. The big score could be 15 Born of the Gods packs, which I think was the total box office gross for Waterworld.
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