May 18th Deck Tech [U/R Burning Vengeance]

May 18, 2012

More building on a budget this week. I try to keep the cost low so you can build the deck for around $20.

This week we’ll be talking about U/R Burning Vengeance.

Similar to U/G Self Mill Burning Vengeance started as a draft archetype in triple Innistrad. You could reliably pick up several copies of the namesake card Burning Vengeance, you would then load up on flashback spells. You would get a decent spell the first time, value added flashback, and with Burning Vengeance out you got additional value as spot removal or direct burn. With the general lack of enchantment targeted removal in triple Innistrad there were few strategies or outs against this deck outside of being an overall faster deck.

Our mana base is fairly flexible, the only multi color cost spells are the tripple-red required to flashback Devil’s Play. We want to have access to black mana for flashback eventually, so 1 swamp and a few Evolving Wilds allow us to fetch up our black source fairly reliably. With everything running so budget we can squeeze in a dual land or two, mana fixing is a big deal and almost always worth your money. While not a land I want to give an honorable mention to Altar of the Lost, with the generally increased cost of flashback spells being able to ramp into them can be a big help while offering a little fixing.

This is a deck that can really make use of Delver, we have a very high density of instants and sorcories, and a blind flip will happen fairly often. We don’t really have a need to set up our draws, we get extra-ordinary value out of each spell and will always have “some” action waiting to go. We aren’t setting up a particularly fast clock either, so quick-flipping delver isn’t too important, Delver is just a great value for us to play. All this means Ponder isn’t the all star it is in top tier Delver decks. Tower Geist is a value creature, it’s a cantrip and lets us choose which card we put in our hand and which goes into our graveyard. And with our focus on playing things from our graveyard it’s a win/win option for us with a decent flying body attached.

Our main win enabler is Burning Vengeance, each card we flashback gives us a free shock to use as spot removal or just straight up burn our opponent out. Secrets of the Dead is the blue version of burning vengeance, instead of a burn spell we get more card advantage. It’s a very tempting option to run, but I just couldn’t find room to squeeze it in, it’s a double edged sword, we can reduce our potential damage from burning vengeance, but increase our raw potential power making it a very tough call for inclusion.

We have our basic card advantage spells: Think Twice, Forbidden Alchemy, Desperate Ravings, and Faithless Looting. Since we cast a lot of spells from the graveyard, even the cards we pitch can be considered card advantage. Silent Departure is our bounce spell to remove threats we aren’t prepared to deal with, or when we want to slow our opponent down. We pack mana leak because we have issues in the mid-game, ramped big drops or other decks curving out until we can really start sending in some bigger burn.

We will mainly win through burning our opponent out, Burning Vengeance gives us some extra fuel to do that with. But we can’t count on having 10 flashback spells, so we need some raw burn as well. Geistflame is a nifty little burn spell to remove small utility creatures and the prevalence of X/1 creatures in the format. Fires of Undeath isn’t the most effecient burn spell, but it does pack flashback and hits a little harder than Geistflame. Our best burn spell is Devil’s Play, we’ll have a decent set of mana sitting about from the high requisite cost of most of our flashback spells, so the X cost is a good outlet, after flashback we can get some serious damage racked up.

There isn’t a huge amount of room for improvement with this deck, the core idea of building around Burning Vengeance is a bit weak, but it’s a fun casual deck to go rogue with and play a few rounds with something different.