I love burn. I love it modern, I love it legacy. It’s the first deck I’ve ever built in both formats and even after trying other decks I can’t find the same enjoyment I get out of burn in other decks. Something about hurling bolts at my helpless opponents face is just so satisfying as I imagine Thunderstruck playing in my head. However lately it seems like I should be hearing candle in the wind instead. After losing my win and in with burn in a legacy challenge back in August I haven’t found much success with burn. I’ve had a few 3-2’s in leagues but mostly go 2-3 and have come up short my last 3 challenges I have played. Is it me or is burn just bad now?

Granted burn was never tier one but it wasn’t fringe either. However, as of this writing it isn’t even listed as a metagame deck on mtggoldfish. That means that for the last month burn has posted no 5-0’s in a legacy league or finished in the top 16 of a major tournament. For reference belcher has 5 decks posted. You heard me right, belcher. The force of will check deck that is probably 1% of the meta has 5 more decks posted this month than burn. There are 3 explanations one can come to: burn is bad, no one plays burn, or burn players are bad.

Is burn bad? It is certainly a dog to combo match ups but it has had proven results in the grixis delver meta that has been happening since the top ban.

(Of note I believe Robert’s list is probably the best one moving forward. But that’s for another article.) The one unique thing I notice from these decks are fetch lands, grim lavamancer, pyrostatic pillar, and pyroblast. These are the basic tool to fight through some of our worse match ups or strengthen our better ones. That’s 3 top 8 finishes at major tournaments for a fringe legacy deck so while burn certainly isn’t great its not horrible to the point of being unplayable either.

Which brings me to play rate. Do people just not play burn and if they do why? Is it because those bad match ups are that bad, are other decks my appealing/fun, or is it a meta call. It’s tough to analyze this as metagame data isn’t readily published, but the MKM series over in Europe does and for the lack of any other data I will have to extrapolate from there. It’s the only place where can find how many people are playing each deck, not just who makes the top cut.

The first stop in the 2018 series was Frankfurt were burn was 4% of the 360 players playing. For reference reanimator was also at 4%, grixis was at 11, and death and taxes was at 7 along with storm. not good odds of making a top 8. None of the decks

Rome was the next stop. It had 111 players with the top 3 decks being played Sneak and Show(9), Lands (9), and Grixis delver (8). Burn wasn’t even listed in the metagame analysis so it was played by less than 3 people. Which gives it a range of 2.7-0% of the meta.

Last for the year so far we have Hamburg which had 260 players, 10 of which were burn which made it tied with elves, and reanimator and ahead of turbo depths and red prison (9). I bring that up because turbo depths had 3 top 8’s and red prison and elves had 1 each. So this is an instance were we have decks that make up the same percentage of the meta game have a better conversion rate into the top 8 than burn.

Since this is very small data it is hard to extrapolate but it makes sense given that burn is sitting at about 2% of the top 8 finishes on mtgtop8 right now. 2% of the meta making 2% of the top 8’s isn’t actually that bad. One could assume that means burn it performing on par with the rest of the field.

Here is some top 8 metagame data here showing that burn is about 2% of the top 8 meta https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rgg-YsN1ad5HYkg2TecNU1sgWh9TkkE-YMGagXrJQKg/edit#gid=20846704.

All in all few people play burn but burn still makes up a fair share of top 8’s.

Which leads me to my last point. Are there not as many top 8s because burn pilots are bad? Probably not given its play percentage but it is reasonable to think this can be part of it. Burn is often a first legacy deck for people given its low cost and therefore the pilots might be new to legacy and unsure of interactions and how certain match up should go or what certain cards do or what to do look out for.

What burn is also also missing is a champion. Patrick Sullivan was the champion of legacy burn. We need someone who plays this deck through thick and through thin. Showing follow red mages the lines of play and how to play certain match ups. It’s hard for burn players to get better because there aren’t enough resources on burn to watch or read because no one is playing or recording. You sort of just have to figure it out on your own these days.

I hope that changes someday and I hope this blog can at lease become a center for people who want to play burn and do well with burn come to to learn to do just that. It doesn’t look like burn is going anyway based on the data since the top ban but May was certainly a rough month, one that I hope isn’t a trend.

Keep sending those bolts upstairs.