Oversoul
The Tentacled One
As I've pointed out in the past, I've had a Burn deck since 1998 or so, and it's the only deck of mine that hasn't been completely dismantled since then. My deck has evolved a whole lot in those 16 years, as I acquired better cards and as new sets introduced new tools. But I'd like to think that the Fireblasts are still original (Al0ysiusHWWW had the deck in his home for a few years, so I don't know for sure), so there's still that one thread connecting this to the deck I built all those years ago.
In 2004, I wrote an article about Burn. For some reason, that article kept receiving comments years later, moreso than my later, better articles. There was an amusing trend in which people would comment on that article noting the lack of some card that hadn't even been printed back when I wrote the article.
In 2010, I went to Exalted Games in Tacoma and competed in a Legacy tournament. Al0ysiusHWWW brought the Burn deck for me to use. He'd modified it heavily from how it had been when I'd last seen it. My only match loss, occurring in the first round, was to the other member of our playgroup (briefly seen at the CPA under the name Unsanitarypigs), piloting a CounterTop deck. He went on to take first place.
I adjusted my decklist a bit since 2010, but mostly I just used it to test a few other casual decks. I didn't bother to physically alter the deck much, although I toyed with lists and included one of them in a Comboist Manifesto article. The actual deck still had some cards that Al0ysiusHWW had added, which I wanted to get rid of (Magma Jet in particular). I wasn't really paying attention. Until a couple of months ago, I didn't even notice that for the past few years, my Burn deck somehow had five copies of Arid Mesa, making it an illegal deck.
Well, I'm finally returning to this deck in earnest. It's time to burn up the world. This is the current decklist...
2x Cave-In
4x Chain Lightning
4x Flame Rift
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Fireblast
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Price of Progress
2x Thunderous Wrath
4x Arid Mesa
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Bloodstained Mire
7x Mountain
3x Scalding Tarn
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Goblin Guide
4x Vexing Devil
No sideboard yet. I'll see about that eventually. For now I want to fine-tune the maindeck. I'll be running some tests to see how the manabase should be. My deck is in a weird spot at the moment: some of the cards prey on a plausible Legacy metagame, while others aren't really typical for a Legacy Burn deck. Specifically, Price of Progress is a bomb against most opponents in a good Legacy metagame, where the vast majority of lands are nonbasic, and Eidolon of the Great Revel shines against the efficient tempo-focused decks that tend to dominate in Legacy. Vexing Devil, on the other hand, is great as an opening play, but can end up being a dead card against many Legacy decks.
Thunderous Wrath is unheard of in Legacy tournament Burn decks, and I think that this is a mistake on the part of the community. The card is a disaster in opening hands, especially after mulligans, but in a deck with zero draw spells, it is the best topdeck there is for a Burn deck, easily beating out everything else for efficiency with the sole exception of a big fifth or sixth turn Price of Progress. Even though the card has been dismissed by tournament players, I was drawn to it and all of my testing has vindicated my decision to run two copies. Three would ruin opening hands too often to be worth it, but two is safe.
Cave-In is another one of my unusual choices. Even Al0ysiusHWW was opposed to this one when I first included it in my decklist (hence the lack of Cave-In when I played Burn in that tournament using the version of the deck that he'd arrived at). Cave-In is sort of the opposite of Thunderous Wrath: you don't ordinarily want to topdeck it. Card disadvantage for the weakest burn spell in the deck makes Cave-In seem dubious. I include two copies anyway because the card has some utility that nothing else can accomplish. For no mana cost, I can turn dead cards in my hand into damage. Cave-In works well with non-miracled Thunderous Wrath, with extra copies of Firestorm, with superfluous creatures, or as a finisher when I'm tapped out and have an extra burn spell in my hand.
I'm on the fence regarding Barbarian Ring, a card that has flowed in and out of this deck over the years. I was actually going to cut all copies of Barbarian Ring, but I couldn't locate my Unglued basic lands (I forget where I stored them) and I left one copy in for the sake of my manabase. Barbarian Ring is a land that doubles as a burn spell, but it is problematic for three reasons. Firstly, cards that hurt my own life total cripple me in matches against other aggro decks, which is the same reason I'm not running Street Wraith and also why I'm hesitant to use so many fetchlands. Secondly, Barbarian Ring interacts poorly with Price of Progress. Thirdly, it's the only land in the deck that doesn't help fuel Fireblast. At only one copy, Barbarian Ring seems to be useful more often than not, but I don't know...
Cards that I might make room for, but that aren't being tested at the moment:
Grim Lavamancer
Monastery Swiftspear
Searing Blaze
In 2004, I wrote an article about Burn. For some reason, that article kept receiving comments years later, moreso than my later, better articles. There was an amusing trend in which people would comment on that article noting the lack of some card that hadn't even been printed back when I wrote the article.
In 2010, I went to Exalted Games in Tacoma and competed in a Legacy tournament. Al0ysiusHWWW brought the Burn deck for me to use. He'd modified it heavily from how it had been when I'd last seen it. My only match loss, occurring in the first round, was to the other member of our playgroup (briefly seen at the CPA under the name Unsanitarypigs), piloting a CounterTop deck. He went on to take first place.
I adjusted my decklist a bit since 2010, but mostly I just used it to test a few other casual decks. I didn't bother to physically alter the deck much, although I toyed with lists and included one of them in a Comboist Manifesto article. The actual deck still had some cards that Al0ysiusHWW had added, which I wanted to get rid of (Magma Jet in particular). I wasn't really paying attention. Until a couple of months ago, I didn't even notice that for the past few years, my Burn deck somehow had five copies of Arid Mesa, making it an illegal deck.
Well, I'm finally returning to this deck in earnest. It's time to burn up the world. This is the current decklist...
2x Cave-In
4x Chain Lightning
4x Flame Rift
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Fireblast
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Price of Progress
2x Thunderous Wrath
4x Arid Mesa
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Bloodstained Mire
7x Mountain
3x Scalding Tarn
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Goblin Guide
4x Vexing Devil
No sideboard yet. I'll see about that eventually. For now I want to fine-tune the maindeck. I'll be running some tests to see how the manabase should be. My deck is in a weird spot at the moment: some of the cards prey on a plausible Legacy metagame, while others aren't really typical for a Legacy Burn deck. Specifically, Price of Progress is a bomb against most opponents in a good Legacy metagame, where the vast majority of lands are nonbasic, and Eidolon of the Great Revel shines against the efficient tempo-focused decks that tend to dominate in Legacy. Vexing Devil, on the other hand, is great as an opening play, but can end up being a dead card against many Legacy decks.
Thunderous Wrath is unheard of in Legacy tournament Burn decks, and I think that this is a mistake on the part of the community. The card is a disaster in opening hands, especially after mulligans, but in a deck with zero draw spells, it is the best topdeck there is for a Burn deck, easily beating out everything else for efficiency with the sole exception of a big fifth or sixth turn Price of Progress. Even though the card has been dismissed by tournament players, I was drawn to it and all of my testing has vindicated my decision to run two copies. Three would ruin opening hands too often to be worth it, but two is safe.
Cave-In is another one of my unusual choices. Even Al0ysiusHWW was opposed to this one when I first included it in my decklist (hence the lack of Cave-In when I played Burn in that tournament using the version of the deck that he'd arrived at). Cave-In is sort of the opposite of Thunderous Wrath: you don't ordinarily want to topdeck it. Card disadvantage for the weakest burn spell in the deck makes Cave-In seem dubious. I include two copies anyway because the card has some utility that nothing else can accomplish. For no mana cost, I can turn dead cards in my hand into damage. Cave-In works well with non-miracled Thunderous Wrath, with extra copies of Firestorm, with superfluous creatures, or as a finisher when I'm tapped out and have an extra burn spell in my hand.
I'm on the fence regarding Barbarian Ring, a card that has flowed in and out of this deck over the years. I was actually going to cut all copies of Barbarian Ring, but I couldn't locate my Unglued basic lands (I forget where I stored them) and I left one copy in for the sake of my manabase. Barbarian Ring is a land that doubles as a burn spell, but it is problematic for three reasons. Firstly, cards that hurt my own life total cripple me in matches against other aggro decks, which is the same reason I'm not running Street Wraith and also why I'm hesitant to use so many fetchlands. Secondly, Barbarian Ring interacts poorly with Price of Progress. Thirdly, it's the only land in the deck that doesn't help fuel Fireblast. At only one copy, Barbarian Ring seems to be useful more often than not, but I don't know...
Cards that I might make room for, but that aren't being tested at the moment:
Grim Lavamancer
Monastery Swiftspear
Searing Blaze