Your Move: Modern Burn
Today I’m going to try a new style of content. I’ve prepared 3 gameplay scenarios for Boros Burn. We’ll walk through the pros and cons of available plays. After that, it’s your move.
Tell me what you’d do in the Reddit comments! If I missed a line, be sure to tell me about it!
For reference I’ll mention my decisions in a separate section at the end of the article. However, this article isn’t called “my move” it’s “your move”! What you’d do is infinitely more important than whatever anyone else thinks!
The scenarios will be a mix of hypotheticals, popular examples, and exerts from my tournament games. If people like this style, I may try it for other decks/formats.
This was inspired by LSV’s “What’s the Play Series” that used to run on Channel Fireball (I am not affiliated with CFB). However, LSV is an All-World level player, while I’m closer to the All-Scrub team. My takes might be totally wrong (I’ll still phrase the article like I know what I’m talking about!) That's why you’ll need to tell me your move (and why!)
You can tell me your decisions with this form (emails are not collected)
Responses can be viewed here
Scenario 1: What Land to Lead On
This is an arbitrary example. In game 1 you’re on the play against an unknown opponent. You open a hand with 2 lands: Arid Mesa and Sunbaked Canyon. Which land do you play first?
You have 3 options
1.1 Play Sunbaked Canyon
1.2 Fetch Sacred Foundry
1.3 Fetch Mountain
The basic idea is about managing life vs conserving the fetchland for a potential Searing Blaze. I deliberately chose a sample hand without Blaze to make things tricky - in this example you’re forced to consider the odds of drawing into blaze. We’ll take a closer look at each option:
1.1 Play Sunbaked Canyon
You are essentially paying 1 life to hold the fetchland. You have a ~8% chance of top decking Searing Blaze next turn. Since you’re on the play, you could still Blaze a 1 drop even if you open on a fetch. However, if you wanted to be able to Blaze their 2 drop on turn 2 (say a Dashing Monkey) you’d need a fetchland back.
Since this hand has Boros Charm it is safe to hold 2 mana for Blaze on turn 2. Even if they don’t play a creature you can still use your mana.
Right now, the 2 drops most worth playing around are Orcish Bowmaster and Dashing Ragavan. If Goblin Guide is your turn 1 play, your opponent may be forced to play Ragavan as a blocker anyways. Orcish Bowmaster is almost always getting flashed in on your turn 3 as a blocker - holding the fetchland doesn’t actually matter.
This is the best line if your opponent is likely to go turn 1 kill spell -> turn 2 dash. Before the printing of Orcish Bowmaster, Ragavan was so prevalent that I would pay 1 life for an 8% chance of drawing Blaze. Right now it’s hard to say (this article is not supposed to be easy!).
If the Goblin Guide in the sample hand was a Searing Blaze instead, this line would be the clear choice!
1.2 Fetch Sacred Foundry
This hand is excellent at putting on pressure. It isn’t very good at interacting. On the play, it is overwhelmingly likely for every burn spell to be sent face.
The biggest threat with this hand is mana flooding. With 13 points of Burn, if Goblin Guide gets answered after just 1 attack this hand still needs to find 1-2 burn spells depending on how much self damage the opponent deals.
Sunbaked Canyon is Burn’s best flood protection. Guaranteeing a White source maximizes the canyon. Don’t want to crack the canyon and draw a Boros Charm you no longer have White mana for! If you draw Mountains/Fiery Islets instead of fetchlands/Inspiring Vantages you may regret not fetching Foundry here.
By Fetching Sacred Foundry you’re essentially saying that you’re willing to pay 2 life now to maximize a Canyon sacrifice later. If you’re playing 4 Helix + 4 Charm this will come up a lot more than 4 Skullcrack + 4 Charm.
1.3 Fetch Mountain
This conserves your life total the most of all the options. If there is any chance you might be outraced, this is the right play. You are more likely to get outraced in lists with 4 Skullcrack and 0 Lightning Helix. Obviously with a turn 1 Goblin Guide you are likely to win the race against most decks. If the Goblin Guide was Skullcrack instead this would be the clear choice.
Now it’s time to tell me Your Move
Scenario 2: Death’s Shadow Ragavan (from Twitter)
This is a few months old, but still worth talking about. All the possibilities are:
2.1: Play Goblin Guide and attack
2.2: Play Monastery Swiftspear and attack
2.3: Play Goblin Guide as a blocker
2.4: Play Monastery Swiftspear as a blocker
2.5: Lava Spike face
2.6: Lightning Bolt face
2.7: Bolt Ragavan
2.8: Hold up bolt to hit Ragavan on their turn
2.9: Do nothing (technically holding up bolt, but with no intention of casting it)
At first glance this is super complicated! However, I grouped similar options (which is why the spacing looks weird). Based on the groupings, we can rule out strictly worse plays. Then we can rule out the “bad plays”. That will allow us to look at only the good plays when picking the move!
Strictly Worse Than Other Options:
2.1 Play Goblin Guide and attack & 2.2 Play Monastery Swiftspear and attack
These are both worse than holding the blocker (2.3 and 2.4). If you attack, Ragavan can freely steal Lightning Bolt (3x), Skewer the Critics (4x), or Searing Blaze (2x) to answer your creature. He can also steal Goblin Guide (3x) or Monastery Swiftspear (3x) to pull ahead in the race. I don’t know if Lightning Helix is still in deck but it could also be a consideration. This adds up to a ~17% chance of your attacker dying after 1 hit (~25% with 4 Helix), plus a ~12% chance of falling behind due to a stolen creature.
If you hold the blocker, the opponent is forced to use their removal. That is, if they have no removal you get to Blaze+attack on turn 2. If they have removal, they have to use it now to open the attack. Attacking risks them stealing an answer to your first creature while getting to hold an answer to your second one.
If you’re very far behind it can be worth betting on Ragavan stealing lands. However, this game is still up for grabs. It’s too early to bet on getting lucky.
2.6: Lightning Bolt face
You would never do this when “2.5 Lava Spike face” is an option. Bolt is an instant and can hit creatures so you’d rather save it and commit the Lava Spike.
2.8: Hold up bolt to hit Ragavan on their turn
This play looks amazing, but is actually straight up worse than 2.7. The basic idea is PV’s rule.
The idea here is to bait out a counterspell. Postboard, at 1 CMC they could have Stubborn Denial, Flusterstorm, or Spell Pierce. At 2 CMC there is also Drown in the Loch. You’re expecting them to play a blue land (thereby giving access to a 1 CMC counter) and swing. If you bolt in combat and they counter it, you get to Blaze Ragavan next turn! Doing nothing would let them save that counter for Blaze. With two blazes in hand, being able to line one up against Ragavan would be incredible!
However, not bolting while they’re tapped out is a major red flag. Any midway decent opponent will be able to deduce that you have Blaze. Suddenly, you’ve given them the choice of whether they want to counter Bolt or allow it to resolve. Especially with the free information you’re giving them, they will always choose whatever is worse for you.
There is another reason why this play is worse than 2.7. Normally, it’s not worth giving your opponent credit for multiple answers (i.e. don’t play around nut draws). The odds of them getting 2 Stubborn Denials in their opener is pretty low. However, the only reason to take line 2.7 over 2.8 is if you’re already giving them credit for 1 counter. If they already have 1 counter, it becomes much easier for them to have 2. Instead of the raw probability of drawing into 2 Stubborn Denials, you are now looking at the conditional probability of having a second counter given they already have the first. If they counter the bolt, Ragavan will make a treasure and they can hold up another counter for Blaze.
If you kill the first Ragavan now, they could dash a 2nd. However, they played a shock land turn 1 so their second land is likely going to cost life as well. Worse case, you can Blaze for 1 and 1 on turn 3 (3 and 3 if you draw a fetch) while they are paying extra mana to keep dashing.
Bad Plays:
2.5 Lava Spike face
TLDR: 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
The key is that this is game 3. You know the opponent is on Death’s Shadow. The biggest misconception in Burn is that the goal of the deck is to deal 20 damage as quickly as possible. In reality, Burn just needs to deal 20 faster than the opponent can execute their strategy. In terms of Death’s Shadow, the lower your opponent’s life total, the faster they can kill you.
<13 life (Death’s Shadow can be played) and <10 life (Death’s Shadow cannot die to bolt) are key thresholds. Unless you have a nut draw (which normally requires being on the play) you don’t want to commit Burn spells while the opponent is above those thresholds. If they have a big Death’s Shadow that is no longer summoning sick and you need to draw into Burn spells, you will normally lose. If you instead have Burn in hand you will normally win.
I’d almost never turn 1 Lava Spike vs Death’s Shadow. Better to be patient, as they cannot threaten a win until their life is way down. With a Ragavan on board, this play is even worse!
Good Plays:
We’re left with 2.3, 2.4, 2.7 and 2.9. Before jumping into the lines, it’s worth thinking ahead. Two blazes seems like a huge liability. However, Death’s Shadow needs creatures on the board to win. As long as you hit your land drops, you’ll get a chance to blaze Shadow essentially as a Lava Spike with extra steps. Remember that Shadow doesn’t have haste. Down the line, you might have to sandbag a land to ensure the blazes stay live. If you can hold back a fetch, you can set up a turn where you double blaze on their end step and then cast Spike + Bolt on your turn to overwhelm their counters.
2.3 & 2.4: Goblin Guide and Swiftspear as blockers
If they don’t have an answer you get to Blaze+attack on turn 2. If they do, they have to commit some mana to open the attack, and you can still try to resolve Blaze on turn 2. Particularly if you draw another land (to ensure landfall later), you can go 2nd creature + Bolt to build your own Blaze.
In this matchup I think GG is more valuable than Swiftspear. Since you want to be patient with your Burn, Swiftpsear only deals 1 per turn. By the time it’s right to go face, the opponent can have big blockers.
If you think Fatal Push + attacking puts the opponent way too far ahead you might as well develop the more valuable creature (GG) and hope they don’t have the Fatal Push. If you think you can come back, play the less valuable creature (Swiftspear) as bait.
2.7: Bolt Ragavan
Giving up a burn spell hurts. However, with 2 creatures in hand you can easily make up for the lost damage. This is the safest play, as left unanswered Ragavan can generate immutable advantage. However, it is the lowest reward. You aren’t developing threats and miss out on Blazing Ragavan.
2.9: Do Nothing
If you think they have Fatal Push you can save your creatures to catch the opponent on a turn where they’re tapped out. The idea is to Blaze Ragavan next turn to make up for getting hit. If the Blaze gets countered, you’ll probably lose on the spot.
Enough from me, now it’s Your Move
Scenario 3: Keruga Control
I haven’t played much Modern lately. However, I went through my old content and found an interesting situation from one of my tournament games. I was on the draw in game 1 of top 8 against Keruga Control (I remade their list which I have a link to - to preserve their privacy I am not directly linking). This game was with open decklists. I ended up winning the game and tournament but that does not mean I made the perfect play.
We both kept 7. My hand looked like this (from memory)
My opponent opened on a tap land. Turn 1 I played Goblin Guide which got hit by Solitude pitched cast via Leyline Binding. On turn 2 my opponent paid 2 life (20 to 18) for an untapped Breeding Pool and passed. I drew Arid Mesa and played a land, leaving this board:
Since it’s from one of my games, I’ll give more background. I don’t remember what I drew on turn 1, but it may have been Searing Blaze since I do remember it getting stuck in my hand. Since it was open decklist my opponent knew I was on Burn (also, I’m always on Burn). Given they kept 7, I felt they could have two types of hands:
H1: Curve into Omnath
H2: Heavy Interaction
Their strategy with H1 would be to barely survive the early onslaught, then start gaining 4 life a turn to pull ahead. This keep would require 3+ lands, and they’d ideally already have the Omnath. They could have 1-2 pieces of interaction.
On H2 they would answer my early threats to slow down the pace of the game. Here instead of trying to get Omnath on curve they’d plan on slowly drawing into it + lands. Answering my early plays would provide the necessary time. They’d have fewer lands in favor of more removal.
Paying for an untapped Shock land means they probably have no more lands in hand. However, they could conceivably have additional Shock Lands or Triomes. They have to have a spell of some sort, with Leyline Binding or Fire//Ice as the most likely. They would not have paid 2 for the Shock if they had Dead//Gone or another Solitude.
The primary lines are:
3.1: Slam Eidolon
3.2: Attack with Swiftspear
3.3: Play Swiftspear, Lava Spike for prowess, then swing
3.4: Pass with Boros Charm
I remember my move, but it’s time for Your Move
PS If you liked this article please check out The Goblin Guide to Modern Burn and Modern Burn Tips & Tricks. My Boros Burn mulligan guide will be out soon!
My Moves
Before reading my moves, feel free to submit your moves (emails are not collected). You can view everyone else’s answers here
Scenario 1:
This was a “trick question” in that all 3 options are close. The point of this example was to demonstrate that why is more important than what. It was more of a warm-up to the harder scenarios. I have no idea what’s perfect, but they can all be right!
For the record, before publishing this article I’d fetch Sacred Foundry (I currently play 4 Helix). However, a reader pointed out something: “there is only 1 life disadvantage between fetching t2 or t1 for a foundry if I'm using all my mana” (thx TwoSidedDice!) Leading on Sunbaked Canyon delays the decision on what to fetch. If you draw vantage, you never have to fetch-shock. Thanks to this, I generally consider 1.1 > 1.2 with 1.3 remaining a viable option.
Historically, I’d estimate my plays as about 40% 1.1, 30% 1.2, 30% 1.3. Going forward, I’d probably say 50% 1.1 and 50% 1.3. If the Burn mirror is popular, 1.3 is the clear choice. This is unlikely to be the decision that determines the game, but it makes for a fun exercise!
Scenario 2:
I would bolt Ragavan ~75% of the time (which is also Mike Flores’s line). I don’t play the same way every game, and sometimes (~20%) I would play Swiftspear as a blocker. I would rarely play Guide as a blocker (~5%) despite that line being almost identical and perfectly viable. It’s worth mentioning that Patrick Sullivan said he’d take the Goblin Guide line. Doing nothing isn’t a bad play either, although I’d take it 0% of the time. None of the other lines will win the game.
Scenario 3:
I broke down my line here (first gameplay tip). Rereading that post gave me the idea to include this scenario in this article! Relevant exert:
“Pitching Leyline Binding means they probably have a 2nd. Paying for the shock also telegraphs an answer, most likely Fire//Ice. They surely have Guide+all burn in my range of keepable hands and would not pay 2 life unless they were guaranteed to use the mana. Fire//Ice has the backup mode of drawing a card off of Ice
I can infer they have 2 answers for my 2 threats: Fire//Ice + Leyline Binding vs Swiftspear + Eidolon. Here, you do not want them to Binding the Eidolon for free, you want them to use Fire on it and take the 2. Instead of slamming Eidolon on turn 2, I played Swiftspear and swung with 1 mana up to represent bolt. This forced them to use Leyline Binding on it thereby committing them to using Fire on Eidolon on turn 3 taking 2 damage”
I wound up getting exactly lethal on the turn they played Omnath, so getting the 2 off Eidolon mattered (they did in fact have Leyline Binding + Fire//Ice). I still have no idea if my play (3.2, then Lava Spike post combat) was actually right, which is why I asked you! That said, I would take 3.2 100% of the time.