Welcome to another edition of Standardized Testing! In this article, I will be looking at a fun combo deck that revolves around Past in Flames and Burn at the Stake, as well as a lot of token generators. The deck doesn't really have an official name but when Conley Woods featured it in his Daily Deck article on Daily MTG it was called Burning Command. I'm not sure I'm a fan of that name as it sounds like a rejected name for Incendiary Command but I suppose it will do. By the way of alternatives I was thinking Past at Stake, Stake in Flames, Burnt Steak or something along those lines. Deck naming isn't really my forte though.
Augur of Bolas This deck is very spell heavy and having a decent body that also digs you deeper to find cards you need is very helpful. This is particularly true as you are generally digging for specific cards.
Goblin Electromancer Electromancer is very useful in this deck. For the combo you need tokens and Burn at the Stake. Often the combo works better if you can generate tokens and Burn at the Stake in the same turn, usually with the help of Battle Hymn. Electromancer makes this possible as, for example, you can generate 4 Spirit tokens with Lingering Souls for just 3 mana. Electromancer helps a lot in making your explosive game winning turns.
Spells
Burn at the Stake
Burn at the Stake is a very powerful card, the red Overrun if you will. With 7 creatures on the battlefield you can deal 21 damage, which is lethal against most opponents. Fortunately, you can usually get some more damage on your opponent by flying over with Spirit tokens, attacking with creatures or your opponent Shocking themselves with the Ravnica duals. Personally, I'd like maybe one more of these main deck as although you have a good number of ways to draw into it sometimes you dig and dig and can't find it when you really need it.
Past in Flames
Past in Flames isn't essential to the combo but it does help, particularly with a Goblin Electromancer out. You can flashback your Krenko's Commands and your Battle Hymns for big turns that end in a big Burn at the Stake, which can be very fun.
Reforge the Soul
Reforge the Soul is a powerful, but sometimes difficult, card to play with. A lot of decks are trying to fill their graveyards and do powerful stuff with them, therefore helping your opponent fill their graveyard isn't always a good idea. Equally, against Control decks letting your opponent restock their hand full of counterspells and such is not a great way of going about beating them. Overall, I have rather mixed feelings about Reforge the Soul although it can be a very powerful draw engine for the deck, it sometimes ends up helping your opponent more than you.
Lingering Souls
One of the best token producers in the Magic history. In a deck that plans to combo by playing a lot of tokens Lingering Souls is clearly a must. The power of Lingering Souls is one of the main reasons you don't need many more token producers in the deck.
Krenko's Command Dragon Fodder for the new age. Arguably you could run Gather the Townsfolk in this spot which is a superior card generally but as the deck is already red mana heavy it makes sense to use the red token generator here. Also, as Battle Hymn generates red mana it means you can sometimes use that mana to make some more tokens, particularly if you're using Past in Flames. Krenko's Command is a solid card too. It's pretty good at slowing down aggressive decks, for example, Stromkirk Noble doesn't seem such a good start when you drop Krenko's Command on the following turn.
Izzet Charm
Izzet Charm is a very powerful utility card. It can shock a dangerous creature, counter a non-creature spell or play as a instant speed Faithless Looting if you need to dig that bit deeper into your deck, all of which are useful and desirable qualities in this deck.
Increasing Vengeance
Increasing Vengeance is a card that I personally have been less that happy with in this list. I think if I was tweaking the deck I would just take these out and add in another Burn at the Stake or maybe some Intangible Virtues. Maybe I'm missing something major but there doesn't seem to be a great lot of use for this card. You can sometimes copy your token spells and maybe copy something nice from your opponent but mostly these just sit in my hand as I spend my mana doing more worthwhile things.
Battle Hymn
Battle Hymn can be a little awkward as it doesn't tend to do any good until the turn you go off. However, it is a very good enabler for going off. Being able to generate tokens and then Battle Hymn for enough mana for a Burn at the Stake is great and often what lets you set up your kill.
Faithless Looting
Faithless Looting is a nice spell for digging you deeper into your deck. You can through your spells into the graveyard ready to use when you find your Past in Flames whilst getting closer to finding the pieces required for the combo. Also, as a good number of your spells have flashback you aren't losing out too much through the discard.
Manabase
Running four colours makes the manabase a little complex. Largely the deck is three colours URW but the black splash is necessary to get full value out of your Lingering Souls.
Hallowed Fountain/Blood Crypt/Steam Vents
The Ravnica duals are excellent lands and really help us to get our four colours together, as well as play our Innistrad/M13 lands into play untapped.
Sulfur Falls/Dragonskull Summit
These are the rest of the duals to finish off the manabase. We need access to all four colours so the more duals the merrier.
Sideboard
Curse of Echoes is an interesting card. I think it's best against opposing token decks as decks that run a lot of token generating spells are weakest to Curse.
Cyclonic Rift is a nice bounce spell that gets even better if you can Overload it, which is easier when you have Goblin Electromancer backing you up.
Gather the Townsfolk can be a nice choice if your opponent is bringing in cards such as Rest in Peace that are going to make your combo more difficult to perform. This way you can go for more of a aggro tokens strategy.
Magmaquake is a nice sweeper for the bigger creatures you might be facing down or any swarming strategy. Also as Lingering Souls is one of your main offensive weapons that fact that it doesn't hit flying creatures is very relevant.
Devil's Play is a bit random though I suppose if you make a lot of mana from Battle Hymn it's another potential win condition. Alternatively, it's just a bit of extra removal.
Rally the Peasants is another card that helps you go down the aggro Tokens route, instead of the combo route when you feel like that will be more successful.
COST
This deck is sadly far from cheap. For a start you need a playset of three different Ravnica duals as well as Sulfur Falls. Also Past in Flames is not a cheap card thanks to be a Mythic rare which is very useful in Modern Storm decks.
In Game 1, my opponent made a quick concession after struggling to find anything useful.
In Game 2, we come very close to making our combo work despite some pressure from a Vampire Nighthawk. However, I didn't think my opponent was running countermagic and so didn't play around it which led to my Burn at the Stake being countered and ultimately me losing the game.
In Game 3, my opponent sideboarded in Duress which seems like a really bad idea against this deck as we can get so much value out of cards in our graveyard. Unfortunately it was a lack of lands that led to me being unable to punish my opponent. Facing down two Vampire Nighthawks and an Izzet Staticaster the following turn I concede.
In this match I took on a UWR Midrange deck.
In Game 1, I have a really good hand and I think ultimately my downfall was not being more aggressive with my Burn at the Stake. My opponent may have had the counter which would have made the point fairly moot but I think I left it too long which left me vulnerable to the eventual Thundermaw Hellkite play which basically finished me off.
In Game 3, my opponent drops a turn 3 Izzet Staticaster and the game is essentially over from there. I have no way to save my tokens from Staticaster and Burn at the Stake is probably the only way to kill it, which is not the way we want to use that card. We manage to stay alive a little longer but a Geist of Saint Traft and a Thundermaw Hellkite close out the game and the match.
In this match I played against UWR Flash.
In Game 1, I use a Turn 2 Goblin Electromancer to generate a four tokens very quickly. I then follow up with a Rally the Peasants and my opponent concedes.
In Game 2, I get off to a rather slow start having to use Faithless Looting to find the cards I need. Fortunately my opponent isn't putting any pressure on and so I can keep digging and find what I need. My opponent manages to find a Detention Sphere for my initial onslaught of Spirit tokens generated by a Lingering Souls but ends up pretty much tapping out to do so. This allows me to play another Lingering Souls, play it again with flashback and then Battle Hymn generating 5 mana for Burn at the Stake killing my opponent who was on 14 life at this point.
CONCLUSION
This deck is a rather interesting deck. Combo decks are always fun, particularly in Standard where they don't show up so frequently. However, ultimately I'm not sure how much this deck has to offer Standard. The idea of using Battle Hymn and Past in Flames to make insane turns where you win out of nowhere is very cool. However, I don't know if I'm just not a very good pilot for the deck but I find the deck to be very inconsistent. A lot of things have to come together to make the deck work. I've had games where I'll draw Past in Flames and Burn at the Stake but can't find any token generators. I've also had games where I have token generators and Past in Flames but never find a Burn at the Stake. Another problem is that the combo is fairly easy to disrupt with Izzet Staticaster, Rest in Peace and countermagic all being ways in which to stop this deck doing what it plans to do.
If you took out the Past in Flames and Battle Hymn and made a RW Aggro Tokens deck I'm not sure it would be all that much worse. In fact, it might be more consistent. Ultimately, I'm not convinced that this deck is consistent enough to have a really significant impact on Standard but I could be wrong.
Overall, this is a fun deck that has had some degree of success but I can't really see it being the next big thing. Good as it is I think it's just to easy to disrupt to be a combo deck with real staying power.
That's all for this edition of Standardized Testing! The next deck I plan to cover is the UWR Flash deck. Also, I'm hoping to get some Becoming A Modern Man articles going again soon so definitely look out for those coming into the new year.
1 Comments
I really appreciate the creativity of the one who made the drawing. A good artist indeed. - Scott Sohr