Know When To Quit

I took Burner up against a nasty little BUG deck Noah has brewed, using Chasm Stalker and...lost. I don't even think the games were close. Now, that was one matchup and I think playing a series against that deck would be quite interesting but the biggest issue I had was an inability to easily get rid of Deathrite Shaman.

What can I say? Good card is good. I also saw a Jace, the Mind Sculptor in game two so I am pretty sure I don't need to tell you how that worked out. Noah, like stonethorn, liked the deck but seeing that it didn't have any ways to deal with planeswalkers, suggested a Council's Judgment. I thought the card might be versatile enough to swap one in for a Rune of Protection: Red so I did. I found Council's Judgment to be pretty helpful against undying creatures, too so I think that card as a one-of is useful.

I also played the deck again last Sunday in some pickup games and found myself on the losing end. And again, I got some suggestions about making Burner a better deck, this time centering around Personal Sanctuary. I found myself quite interested in this idea in the moment. A card that would allow me to do whatever I want on my turn? Why shouldn't I play that? It seems perfect!

This morning I realized why it wasn't perfect. Sphere of Law.

Sphere of Law already does exactly what I want Personal Sanctuary to do and it has the additional bonus of stabbing at the heart of any red deck I play against. Personal Sanctuary doesn't do that. And in my recent losses: the problem was that I didn't see either a Rune or a Sphere.

It's not that the suggestions were unwelcome: ideas are what spawn awesome things. Changes, mixups, general cool madness! I really like Personal Sanctuary and want to add it to something but! That card doesn't provide me with an edge in any matchup I can think of. Sphere of Law and Rune of Protection: Red, do. If I want this to be the best deck I can make, I need to play the most optimal cards. Burner is a solid deck that I believe gives me an opportunity in most of my matchups and I think I've taken it as far as I can. That suits me just fine.

Except for one little thing: Battlefield Forge should become Wind-Scarred Crag. Why? Because Wind-Scarred Crag exists now and it didn't when I first assembled Burner.

The Voice of Broken Glass

I played a few games against Fuz, who was piloting a U/R storm deck. Essentially: he wanted to cast cheap spells and then beating down with Storm Entity. I wanted to make him take two damage every time he did that and I wanted to protect myself from red damage with Rune of Protection: Red.

So that matchup didn't teach me a whole lot.

The more interesting match came against Matt, running a Stasis deck.

Stasis. Possibly one of the biggest pain in the butt cards in Magic. Matt wanted to test his deck but was reluctant to do so, because Stasis is such a grindy card. However, Burner is a Jason deck (Handle any weird shit comes your way) so I wasn't too concerned: I actually thought this would be a great test.

And it was! The games were slow and needed a lot of thought but I did pull them out. Wear/Tear did precisely what I expected it to do and the perpetual trigger of Assemble the Legion helped keep the pressure on.

However, Glacial Chasm presented me with a serious issue and I am certain I won the final game because Matt made an error with his Glacial Chasm upkeep trigger, allowing me to take out the Crucible of Worlds and leaving him with not enough land to establish his board presence.

So I'm left with a question: Is Rolling Thunder good enough for this deck? I like the versatility of Thunder but a card that could be played as an instant or provide me with unpreventable damage might be a stronger decision. So I'm putting in one Banefire as a potential win condition. I should be able to suss out if I need to hold on to Banefire or not if I draw it early depending on the matchup and having a practically uncounterable source of damage when required is not bad. I don't suspect I will need it often: Glacial Chasm and Solitary Confinement are the only cards I can think of right now that might be a problem, but I don't see any reason to cut that tool from the toolbox.

I don't think you're gonna like the one you're gonna get

I have to confess, I'm pretty pleased with the decisions I made with Burner.

The first substitutions were to cut the Allay and Shatterstorm for Wear/Tear. I really love those cards but they are narrow and fit better in Commander formats, where multiple artifacts or enchantments will need to be destroyed. In 1v1 games, picking the right target at the right time is usually enough.

Then I decided I needed to replace Energy Bolt. I wanted a card that would do two things: 1) Not be a creature and 2) provide me with a way to forward my win condition.

This is where I run headfirst into the problems with modern Magic designs. Creatures matter and spells are less about where it's at, unless we're talking Planeswalkers. But even the planeswalkers in the colors I am running have a very strong creature focus: Nearly every iteration of Ajani has a +1 involving creatures. Elsbeth puts creatures into play. Gideon relies on creatures (creatures I want to destroy). Koth is for a mono-red deck, Tibalt is a bit too risky and the new flavor of Sarkhan (Sarkhan Lite!) I didn't even consider. Partly because he's so new but also because he's over $30 and I'm evoking the My Money rule.

Ajani Vengeant might have a place and the Chandras...maybe.

Truth be told I didn't consider the Planeswalkers because My Money > Less of My Money. Still, if it is necessary for a deck then those things can probably be acquired in time, assuming they don't break the bank.

If I am not going to spend a lot of money then what are my options? Straight out burn spells are frequently inefficient or too small to get the job done. White wants to give me creatures. I don't want creatures, because that gives my opponents options they didn't have before. What do I do?

Then I remembered stonethorn's victory condition: Assemble the Legion. I was reluctant to add it in at first, because of the creature path to victory but I wasn't coming up with any better ideas so I thought I'd give it a test.

Against stonethorn, Burner tested admirably. I didn't win those matchups but the games were tense and the Legion presented an avenue for pressure that squeezed stonethorn against the Pyrostatic Pillar/Spellshock cards.

He took a look at the deck and wondered if I had "too much cycling". I smiled because I know that drawing cards in an uncounterable way is Good Times, especially under my win conditions. But stonethorn agreed; the deck was a solid build, it just needed something to push it a little further. I decided to up the ante: cut Cave-In and Steam Blast for another Renewed Faith and a third Assemble the Legion. Awww yeah.