Boros Burn Sideboard Guide (RIX)



Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan didn't go very well for me. After a promising 3-1 start, I went 0-4 in my fast four rounds and failed to make Day 2. I played a few bad matchups such as Bogles and in a few games simply drew too many lands or was one card away from winning.



Despite my poor performance at the Pro Tour, I liked my list as I spent a lot of time fine-tuning it and Lee Wing Tat and Wu Kon Fai (who played my 75) both went 7-3 with it at the PT. Today I am going to talk why I decided to play the deck, some specific card cho, ces and a sideboard guide.







Why I Played Burn?



I have been a big fan of Goblin Guide, and most of my Modern experience was with Burn, so I knew I was nearly locked on Burn once they announced there would be a Modern Pro Tour, unless the playtesting team come up with a busted deck like Eldrazi at the last Modern Pro Tour.



During our playtest before the Pro Tour, our "metagame analyst" Lee Shi Tian and Tomoharu Saito tried to predict the metagame and came to the conclusion that 5-Color Human, Affinity, Death's Shadow will be the most popular choices.



They decided to play White-Blue Control and while their list looked very promising, I was never good at playing Blue cards so I knew I wouldn't play the deck.



While Burn doesn't have an excellent matchup against the most popular archetypes we expected [5-Color Human (even), Affinity (slightly bad), Death's Shadow (slightly good)], it does have a lot of good matchup against the Top 4th-10th archetypes we expected [BGx (slightly bad/even), Burn (slightly good because I always play Kor Firewalkers in my sideboard), Storm (good), UW/Jeskai Control (good), Tron (good), RG Titanshift (slightly good)].



This was the major reason that I decided to stick to Burn.



Burn also lived up its name as one of the "Modern Police" because it usually matchups well against decks that randomly show up in the metagame (e.g. Mono Blue Living End and BR Hollow One).

Boros Burn (RIX) (Modern - Others) Gallery View Modern by Yam Wing Chun Add All to Cart

Mainboard (60)



Arid Mesa

2 Bloodstained Mire

2 Inspiring Vantage

3 Mountain

2 Sacred Foundry

4 Scalding Tarn

1 Stomping Ground

2 Wooded Foothills

20 land



4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

4 Goblin Guide

1 Grim Lavamancer

4 Monastery Swiftspear

13 creature



20 land13 creature Boros Charm

4 Lava Spike

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Lightning Helix

4 Rift Bolt

4 Searing Blaze

2 Shard Volley

2 Skullcrack

27 other spells



27 other spells Sideboard (15)



2 Destructive Revelry

1 Lightning Helix

2 Path to Exile

2 Rest in Peace

2 Searing Blood

2 Skullcrack

2 Smash to Smithereens

2 Kor Firewalker

15 cards



15 cards





Specific Card Choices



I insisted on playing 20 lands in Burn because you keep a lot of one-landers. With the rise of the 5-Color Human decks, you often needed to hit the third land to fight through Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and cards like Spreading Seas in White-Blue Control.



I decided to play just two Inspiring Vantage because of the rare case where you want your fourth land come into play untapped to unload a two two-mana burn spells, whereas the life loss of fetching an untapped Sacred Foundry used to be irrelevant.



However going forward I will cut a fetch land to play 3 Inspiring Vantage because there are now more matchups (5-Color Human, Affinity) where taking 2 less damage from the lands could buy you an extra draw step. Also, it is better to do a 3/3/3/3 spilt on the fetch lands so you are less likely to get hit by a random Pithing Needle.







Most of the Burn lists played a full set of Lightning Helix and Skullcrack. However, I decided to cut a few to make room for a pair of Shard Volley.



Against some matchups where both sides don't interact much (e.g. Tron, R/G Titan Shift), you want to unload your burn spells as fast as possible, and having access to the "5th and 6th Lightning Bolt" enables a more consistent turn-four kill.











I liked the 2-2 split on the Smash to Smithereens and Destructive Revelry spilt very much.



First of all, you never bring in a full set of Destructive Revelry against potential Leyline Sanctity unless you are absolutely sure they have it. In the matchups where Destructive Revelry is better (Bogles and Ad Nauseam), the matchup is already so unfavorable that having a full set doesn't help much.



On the other hand, there are plenty of matchups (e.g. Tron, Lantern) where you only care about artifacts. In cases like that Smash to Smithereens is better.





Sideboard Guide





Eldrazi Tron



-4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

-3 Searing Blaze



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Skullcrack

+2 Smash to Smithereens

+1 Lightning Helix





Abzan / Jund / BG



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Rest in Peace





5-Color Humans



-2 Lava Spike

-1 Eidolon of the Great Revel

-2 Skullcrack



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix



Burn spells which card target creatures, and creature removal is more important than "direct" burn spells such as Lava Spike, Eidolon of the Great Revel, and Skullcrack. Sideboarding this way allows us to interact with the creatures on the board better.





Tron







-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Skullcrack

+2 Smash to Smithereens

Searing Blaze is almost a dead card while and usually have plenty of targets.







Titan Shift / Valakut



-2 Searing Blaze

+2 Skullcrack



You can bring in two additional Smash to Smithereens and take out all the Searing Blazes if you see (or strongly suspect) that they have Witchbane Orb.





Abzan Company / Combo



-4 Eidolon of the Great Revel



+1 Skullcrack

+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





Death's Shadow



-4 Searing Blaze

-1 Skullcrack



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Rest in Peace

+1 Lightning Helix





Lantern Control



-4 Searing Blaze

-2 Lightning Helix



+2 Skullcrack

+2 Smash to Smithereens

+2 Destructive Revelry





U/R Gifts Storm



-2 Skullcrack

-1 Rift Bolt



+2 Rest in Peace

+1 Lightning Helix





White-Blue Control / Jeskai Control



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Skullcrack

+2 Destructive Revelry





Burn Mirror



-4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

-1 Skullcrack



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Kor Firewalker

+1 Lightning Helix





Affinity



-4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

-2 Lava Spike

-2 Skullcrack

-1 Rift Bolt



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Smash to Smithereens

+2 Destructive Revelry

+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





Dredge



-2 Lava Spike or Eidolon of the Great Revel

-1 Rift Bolt



+2 Rest in Peace

+1 Lightning Helix



Whether you take out Lava Spike or Eidolon of the Great Revel depends on whether you are on the play or the draw. You sideboard out Lava Spike when you are on the play, and you sideboard out Eidolon of the Great Revel when you are on the draw.





Living End



-2 Skullcrack

-1 Rift Bolt



+2 Rest in Peace

+1 Lightning Helix





Bant Knightfall



-4 Lava Spike



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Searing Blood





Ad Nauseam



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Skullcrack

+2 Destructive Revelry





Elves



-4 Eidolon of the Great Revel (On the Draw)

-3 Lava Spike (On the Play) (1 On the Draw)

-2 Skullcrack (On the Play)



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





Merfolk



-3 Eidolon of the Great Revel

-2 Skullcrack



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





R/G Ponza



-2 Eidolon of the Great Revel



+2 Skullcrack





Grishoalbrand



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Rest in Peace

+2 Skullcrack





Mono Blue Living End



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Rest in Peace

+2 Skullcrack





B/R Hollow One



-4 Eidolon of the Great Revels

-2 Skullcrack

-1 Rift Bolt



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Rest in Peace

+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





Grixis Control



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Path to Exile

+2 Rest in Peace





Krark-Clan Ironworks



-4 Searing Blaze

-2 Skullcrack



+2 Rest in Peace

+2 Smash to Smithereens

+2 Destructive Revelry





Black-White Eldrazi or W/G Hatebears



-1 Eidolon of the Great Revel

-2 Skullcrack



+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





Mardu Pyromancer



-2 Skullcrack



+2 Path to Exile





Bant Spirits



-1 Lava Spike/Eidolon of the Great Revel (Play/Draw)

-2 Skullcrack



+2 Searing Blood

+1 Lightning Helix





White-Red Sun & Moon



-4 Searing Blaze



+2 Skullcrack

+2 Destructive Revelry





Jeskai Through the Breach



-2 Searing Blaze



+2 Skullcrack





Naya Eldritch Evolution



-3 Lightning Helix

-1 Rift Bolt



+2 Searing Blood

+2 Skullcrack

Anyway, thanks for taking time to read my articles about Burn and I hope you've learned something new. Enjoy Boros Burn!

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