One of the things that's great about Magic is that, as a constantly evolving game, there are constantly new things to learn! You can be a twenty-five-plus-year veteran of The Red Zone and learn something new. You can have penned the preeminent how-to guide for melting faces and still pick up a trick or three for better tapping your Basic Mountains.

Just this past weekend I learned three substantial things about how to play Red Decks that I thought I'd share. Two of them have to do with Modern Boros Burn (or Naya Burn for you Destructive Revelry-dependent plebs out there); and one for the hated Big Red in Standard. Okay, I don't hate the deck that much and it's actually grown on me a little bit. But I still don't like it as much as the Busson Experimental Frenzy deck... But for our purposes it offers a different and important perspective on topic.

... Even if that topic is still a Standard Red Deck.

Our timeline:

• Friday Night Randomness
• Still Friday Night: The Last Three
• Sunday Night: RIP, Rest in Peace

Friday Night Randomness

So I was watching Round Two.

Like, all of Round Two.

I had made an ignominious 0-1 start at FNM with my previously-reliable Red Deck; you know, the one that inspired this series of Tweets from Magic Mics co-host (and ex-GP roommate of Yours Truly) Reuben Bresler:

Hit Diamond 4 just now on @MTG_Arena, deck is perfect @fivewithflores had it right in his article obv, no one should play anything else except for this. #mtg@StreamDecker link: https://t.co/LZHKEG7YRs@CoolStuffInc article: https://t.co/fWgPRR5KB7 pic.twitter.com/lNBEyz7xu5

— Reuben Bresler (@MoxReuby) January 4, 2019

The nice people at Montasy Comics had let someone enter the tournament between rounds after it had started. Lo and behold that made for a now-odd number of players; and as the doofus who kept one-land / three-Runaway Steam-Kins into the Losers' Bracket, I was odd man out with the Bye. So I got to at least see what everyone was playing.

Most of the matches had reached their natural conclusions by half past, but in the middle of the 1-0 row were two titans of Friday Night still battling it out in Game 1. Game 1!

Directly in front of me was a Golgari mage, Derek, who had everything under control. I mean everything. Handful of cards driven by Explores. Battlefield covered with lands... Also driven by Explores, I suppose. Add to the odd Chupacabra a fresh Izoni, Thousand-Eyed and it would be difficult to imagine a more lopsided game where both players had gotten a chance to play (and play for so many turns). I wasn't sure if this was a two-turn clock or just one, but the creature advantage was a decided one. So SO SO many Insects.

That advantage was over zero. His opponent, a Big Red player adding Blue for Expansion // Explosion (cool splash, BTW, along with some sideboard cards) had a whole lot of nothing. No cards, actually. But lots of lands! Everyone else had finished their matches, but this one was ten a side at least, so there had been lots of time for land drops. Among those lands were four - count 'em four - flipped Treasure Coves! I didn't notice it initially, but there was also a single Treasure token with a die on top set to five.

No Phoenixes, though. No Siege-Gang Commanders. All the Goblin Chainwhirlers long-since dead.

Big Red (or rather, Big Red-Blue, let's say) peeled his card for the turn, counted his lands, moved his Treasure-die off the table, looked up at Derek, and concluded "Banefire for twenty-two."

Both counted and re-counted the mana, accommodating for the Treasure tokens. Yep, that was twenty-two.

Derek sacrificed maybe three creatures to Izoni to lift his life total, or try to find an as-yet-unknown solution to this slaying sorcery... But to no avail.

"Yeah," he conceded. "That'll do it."

Everyone had a laugh. I mean, not me; there were still fifteen minutes on the clock and I hadn't had a chance to game yet this round. But yeah, it was a pretty cool, if unexpected, finish. Derek probably had Big Red dead in a turn or two of swinging, but a solo lethal Banefire was just that: Lethal.

Here's the thing I learned: You gotta embrace randomness. Sometimes.

From Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe* #1

I think as aspiring tournament players who read Magic strategy articles, we are largely grabbing for control. Control, or a sense of certainty, or predictability. We are largely trying to find patterns that become familiar, so that they are natural for us when they come up in the real world. Or at least in a match.

But that's not the only way to approach Magic. In fact, it's not a very good way when you're behind. Playing for consistency, or toward familiar patterns, simply reinforces what both players expect to happen; what the matchup is "supposed" to be about. When you're behind, one of the best paths you can take is the unexpected.

Example: Last week I suggested Dimir sideboard in Thief of Sanity against Busson-Red. That doesn't make a lot of sense against main decks. They have Shock! If they know you're banking a lot of your sideboard equity into a 2/2 for three, they might side in Lava Coil, even. But if they don't, they might over-value hands with no removal because they want to deploy offensively... Right into cards that are otherwise only pretty good (like Moment of Craving). Even worse for them is when they go slow with Treasure Maps. You can be the Beatdown early! Just make sure to save your Vraska's Contempts for Rekindling Phoenix and they might not be able to block the whole game!

At Grand Prix New Jersey, fresh of my Trial-winning two byes, I faced excellent Pro Andrew Tenjum with . He played Knight of Grace and History of Benalia. I played Wayward Swordtooth and some Explore guys. He was forced to use Conclave Tribunal on two copies of Treasure Map... So when we hit the midgame, I took completely over with Experimental Frenzy. Game 1 took a long time. I was playing five lands a turn, but had buried a Fight With Fire early via Adventurous Impulse. He hit me exactly one time with a Rekindling Phoenix before I did the math to get all the way to the bottom of my deck for a dynamic Fight With Fire before attacking for 20+ with all four Dinosaur engines.

I was feeling great! I had won the Trial the day before, and was up a game against a legitimate star Pro. I couldn't recall the last time I had beaten someone so bad. I sided out a lot of my engine cards for Wildgrowth Walkers and Fiery Cannonades... You know, to blunt his many 2/2 Knights.

Tenjum annihilated me Game 2. He just sided in multiple copies of Huatli, Warrior Poet. That card isn't that good in the abstract... But all of a sudden he had multiple 3/3 machines to my 1/3 guys... Who weren't blocking anything. I had given up everything that made my deck great in anticipation of a deck he no longer was.

We went to boards again for Game 3, but my window had passed. I could Banefire him for 22 at some point, but he got one hit in with Lyra Dawnbringer and I had to spend the big burn spell on her. I went from 2-0 to 2-1, while he finished Day One undefeated. We talked about it after, and he said he didn't think I needed to sideboard whatsoever to beat any configuration of his deck. The non-anti-beatdown version beat his fully loaded version effortlessly in Game 1. It was on me to make my deck worse, and on him to do something sideways to get an advantage, largely by being unexpected.

I didn't expect Huatli, or being on the wrong side of Deafening Clarion from the smaller-creatures deck... Any more than Derek - ahead on every measure that counts - expected being Banefired out with a lethal Izoni in play.

But that's the point!

When you aren't likely to win on the merits, sometimes the only way to win is to catch the opponent off guard.

What happened Friday night?

They went to time, obviously. Derek beat me at the 1-0-1 versus 1-1 table, putting me to a 1-2 drop on the night, with that one win being a bye.

After so many FNM wins with Mono-Red I just kept hearing The Rock's voice to stay humble. Not one of the things I actually learned, but important nonetheless. Probably.

Still Friday Night: The Last Three

So all during FNM I was getting phone updates.

Young Roman Fusco was at Grand Prix Oakland, destroying any and all with - you guessed it - our Boros Burn. The only point of contention (main deck, at least) was a Lightning Helix over nineteen land and a Shard Volley. All due respect to Grand Prix Champion Adrian Sullivan, but Shard Volley over Lightning Helix makes no sense, especially going down a land.

Burn, generally, is the opposite of randomness. People underestimate it in Modern, somehow not realizing that almost everything is bad against it. I mean some things are really good against it, but most of the decks people play are quite favorable. You don't want random elements when this is the case; you want to emphasize your consistency and redundancy.

I didn't get the last update until almost eleven.

"I lost in the Finals," poor kid. "He was on three."

What followed was a predictable tale against KCI. He had drawn Stony Silence but the opponent had Nature's Claim.

I didn't do a great job articulating it to Roman Friday night, but I think Kataki, War's Wage is superior in the Burn sideboard. In fact, the last time I played Modern Burn (to a PPTQ Top 4), this was my list:

No changes to main deck. I mean who messes with perfection? We went VERY Kamigawa Block on the 75. Top 8 but no ? #pptq https://t.co/tJuwUwoJG5 pic.twitter.com/k5yCwLBdyU

— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) September 10, 2018

The reason is those last three life points.

Offensively, Burn is a deck that converts finite resources - generally cards - into a slightly higher return in life points 1:2 or 1:3. It is not a deck like Bogles, which can convert small amounts of mana into huge individual returns. Burn's strength is that it can deploy a sometimes irresistible offense that the opponent cannot hope to interact with; but its weakness is that it must do so with a limited number of cards. Every Stony Silence (or as we will see, Rest in Peace) comes at a cost: It is potentially a windmill slam... But it doesn't do any damage.

I really wish I had been more convincing Friday night.

Come Sunday night, this was the update I got from BDM:

Had Roman unseated the celebrated Matt Nass at 10-2, he would have been in a win-and-in. Instead, Matt took home his umpteenth KCI Top 8, and Roman conceded his friend Hunter Cochran into what would end up the Grand Prix Finals.

Matt won the roll Game 1, and executed the turn three loop.

On his play, Roman got a goldfish kill turn four.

The last game was super close. It involved a Lightning Bolt on a Goblin Guide; a Lightning Bolt on a Grim Lavamancer; tapping out for KCI - and passing the turn! - before a Nature's Claim on Eidolon of the Great Revel. Matt won on four life. That Roman had a lethal Boros Charm in hand is less interesting than the fact that Spine of Ish Sah took out his solo white while Matt bought the time he needed to go off.

Of course I was cheering for my friend and protege.

But I also thought about the interaction between Nature's Claim and the Boros Burn deck. They always have something; even if it's their own artifact to just gain four life. That they can spend it on an Eidolon is great for them, of course; because they're pretty stuck siding it in. So damning is an unchallenged Stony Silence.

But here's the thing: Nature's Claim gives the KCI deck a lot of room to play. Lightning Bolt on the other hand is heavily taxed. Imagine the opponent buys a turn and another turn - as Matt did - with Lightning Bolts. Imagine the last creature stuck was Kataki instead of Eidolon; a creature that is heavily disruptive to KCI but can't be targeted by Nature's Claim.

How does that change the matchup?

For one thing... It's random like we talked about last section.

It throws off their expectations, and hyper-taxes their Lightning Bolts while making their Nature's Claims (which we've already agreed they have to side in) much less good.

But most importantly? You are way less likely to leave the opponent on 3-4 life in the clincher for the Blue Envelope or near the end of the Grand Prix when your disruption 2-drop also attacks for two.

For what it's worth, I'd probably consolidate Zo-Zu the Punisher (and maybe Sudden Shock) to play three. I much prefer Kataki to Stony Silence against specifically Hardened Scales Affinity, anyway.

Roman is almost there, isn't he? He was even closer to the Blue Envelope than that RPTQ Top 4, and then he almost cracked a Grand Prix Top 8 48 hours later! Proud of you, son ;)

Sunday Night: RIP, Rest in Peace

I've never been a big fan of Rest in Peace in Boros Burn.

I used to think it was novel against Tarmogoyfs... But when was the last time I lost to a Tarmogoyf in Modern? I think four years? Reality Smasher? Sure. Timely Reinforcements? Barf. But Tarmogoyf? It's been a w h i l e.

Every time I saw Rest in Peace coming out of Burn against Phoenix it seemed really unimpressive to me.

If you're worried about turbo-Dredge with quad copies of Creeping Chill... So am I. If you think that's a popular deck, I'm not sure if siding a couple of copies of Rest in Peace is really going to get you there. You're spending effectively two cards versus just their free cards. When I made Top 8 of Modern Regionals last year, I road tripped with Kamil Lupicki, a friend of Roman's who had previously smashed me to win his own first PPTQ. Kamil was a dedicated Dredge player who just encouraged me to side in all my Searing effects.

Dredge - pre-Creeping Chill Dredge, at least - mostly uses Narcomoebas to buy time against your attackers, or has some generally garbage-sized bodies that don't really win any fights, but are persistent in their ability to either gum up attacks or race. Playing all your Searing effects gets Narcomoeba out of the way and ensures a healthy race at the same time. It was a good solution from my perspective, and one that didn't require me to play any fancy cards in my sideboard.

The problem with Rest in Peace isn't just that you don't need help against Tarmogoyf; it's not just that it's inconsistent and slow against Dredge. It's that it forces you to pay the deck-building cost... But radically under-performs against Phoenix.

Who wins in a fight, Rest in Peace or Thing in the Ice? No interaction you say? How about Rest in Peace versus Crackling Drake? Still no interaction? Surely Rest in Peace will beat Arclight Phoenix, right? How many times have you seen someone just tap four to get in three with Rest in Peace on the 'field? More than once, I bet.

"But MichaelJ," you plead... "They can't get the Phoenix back!"

So what? They did three. Your next move is to do three to the Phoenix. Okay they can't get it back. You're down your burn spell and you're down a Rest in Peace... For what? The right to lose to their 4 toughness guys?

I'm just saying: Radical under-performer. I'd rather have all my Searing stuff against their Phoenixes and Swiftspears, and Chained to the Rocks and Path to Exile for whoever, and not have to pay the deck-building cost.

But that's just me and what I learned watching other folks play Burn all weekend.

LOVE

MIKE

*This is apparently also a web series? I didn't know. Jason David Frank!?! BBL...