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Main » Articles » Why I Hate Skullcrack

Why I Hate Skullcrack

Michael Flores
Posted on March 5, 2019
 Reddit

In the beginning there was Atarka's Command.

The first time I placed well with a Modern Burn deck, I played four copies of Atarka's Command in the main. I must have really, really, liked this effect because not only did I play four copies main, I ran two of the "inferior" version, Skullcrack, on top in the sideboard!

The odder thing to my, let's call them, postmodern eyes is the count of Lightning Helixes. Lightning Helix is a card where I haven't run less than the full four copies in any Burn list that could play it in something like three years.

The thesis is clear: Gaining life was nice, but preventing the opponent from gaining life was so important I'd go 4 + 2.

Like I said, I've switched to Lightning Helix [in Boros of course, not my more recent switchover to black], and increasingly cooled on Atarka's Command and / or Skullcrack-type effects.

Gaining three life isn't overly important to Burn decks; last January I even posted a version that liked to damage itself! So Lightning Helix can gain three life; this is nice in the mirror or other beatdown-oriented matchups... But that's not why I grew to prefer it over Atarka's Command or eventually Skullcrack.

Quite simply, Lightning Helix affects the board, and Skullcrack doesn't. For its part, Atarka's Command only did sometimes, and never on its own merits.

At the end of the still-Naya days, I learned to side out Atarka's Command in the mirror. This was a subtle, important, strategic innovation. Essentially, if you sided out Atarka's Command, you could never draw Atarka's Command. Because it was the only Green card in the deck, you'd never be forced to search up Stomping Ground [to cast what you drew]. Over time, that meant saving 2-3 life every match or two. Or, basically denying the opponent a free draw.

Inspired by Inspiring Vantage

Inspiring Vantage was the most important tool for Boros (or, previously, Naya) since Eidolon of the Great Revel. Skullcrack was a weaker card than Atarka's Command, but did more-or-less what you wanted (unless you had multiple Swiftspears in play, and our Boros deck at the time played a whopping twelve creatures). There were enough good cards to play.

The legendary Wrapter went a different way a short time later with his take on Burn:

Burn | Modern | Josh Utter-Leyton

Though he still played Green, Wrapter had good reason: He figured out Manamorphose!

Manamorphose - or even more uniquely, Bedlam Reveler - didn't really stick. Most Burn players since have flipped closer to the core 12-14 creatures; and no Wild Nacatls, even when electing to play Stomping Ground.

But in Wrapter's deck, Manamorphose gets you a Green cheaply and on demand, without having to fetch Stomping Ground 100% of the time. It also makes casting Kor Firewalker trivial. You draw into your sideboard cards more consistently, and you can pretty much always cast them.

And, of course, you can cheaply get those Bedlam Revelers online.

What struck me about Wrapter's build was that he had access to whatever he wanted. At the time I wasn't into Destructive Revelry anymore; Inspiring Vantage was so good in all the aggressive matchups I was okay with a small downgrade to Shattering Spree or Smash to Smithereens. But in a heavy Manamorphose deck? It's kind of obviously right.

Ditto on Kor Firewalker. I mostly stopped playing it because I kept winning Game 1 against Stomping Grounds decks. But when it's free? That ww isn't all that fancy.

So Wrapter could cast anything.

And he chose to not even try to cast either version of Skulkcrack, 1r or rg.

It's Not That Good, Even When It's Good

The first time I won an event with Burn, I played against another Burn list in the Finals. My Goblin Guide turned over Skullcrack early, so I knew he had one mid-game.

It was a sideboarded game. As I've said, I sided out all my Atarka's Commands, but also didn't consider siding in my own Skullcracks. I maxed out my Searing cards to handle stuff on the battlefield. Clearly he was playing against my Lightning Helixes.

Anyway, I was just kind of attacking and leaving my mana open. At the end of my turn, he sent off the Skullcrack. I read him for multiple Skullcracks, but he didn't have four mana in play so it didn't matter.

"Lightning Helix you in response?"

Not quite $16,000, but... What a disaster.

I've had spotty experience with Skullcrack myself in the three years since. I once got a uw player in response to a big Sphinx's Revelation. But he drew into Blessed Alliance, you know, on account of drawing five or whatever; and just gained eight the next turn anyway.

What a disaster.

I keep getting in arguments with young apprentice Roman Fusco over this card. At this point, I think it's flat-out bad. Bad in the sense that it's not as good as other cards you can play, anyway, rather than bad in the sense that you should never side it in even when you have it.

Yet...

Roman called me from the PTQ at Magic Fest LA last night. His friend was about to play the Finals against either Bogles or Golgari Mid-range.

"LOL," I responded. "Either always lose or always win. Let's go Tarmogoyf!"

He wanted to know if he should side in Skullcrack. I asked if the opponent had Kalitas.

The answer would have been the same regardless.

Game 1 is super favorable for Burn against Tarmogoyf decks because your guys are all "Swiftspears" ... As a result of haste or being an Eidolon, they all represent consistent return on mana, even when the opponent has removal.

But in sideboarded games, you will often be playing against multiple copies of Scavenging Ooze, and worse, Scavenging Ooze off of Bloodbraid Elf. All together this helps the opponent stabilize their life total while building a plausible offensive board presence.

What you want is to kill all their guys (dealing with the latter) while un-stabilizing their life total (the former). A two damage Searing Blood gets many of the Oozes... But all of the Elves. Plus, Kalitas has lots of toughness so you will often need to double up removal to kill it.

Again we have a situation where you need to focus on cards that deal with the battlefield. You want to draw cards that are all great against Bloodbraids and Oozes (sometimes plus value). But everything that hits creatures helps against Lhurgoyfs and Legends.

I've only ever lost this matchup when I drew a bunch of (but somehow not enough) Lava Spikes; and Skullcrack is just an awful, half-efficiency Lava Spike most of the time. What's your plan, exactly? Hold your 'crack for when Kalitas is getting you? Leave mana open for Ooze activations? Both cases involve you getting behind on the board, essentially willfully; meaning even if you limit the opponent's life gain, you're quite likely to lose to the big dudes, the old fashioned way.

Put Another Way...

This is Loxodon Hierarch:

Loxodon Hierarch

Nobody plays this card any more, but you'll just have to believe me that this was widely considered the best Constructed creature of the original Ravnica: City of Guilds.

Because this creature gained four life, it was considered a godsend against Red Decks. Legendary @basicmountain even made up the nickname "three stupid Elephants" to describe just playing three Hierarchs off of this card (when it wasn't being used for something more naughty):

Congregation at Dawn

So anyway, this card gains four. In the most reasonable case that the opponent casts a card on this order, and you have specifically Skullcrack open at specifically the right time, you deal seven. Seven for two is great!

Of course this is only during a very particular window against a particular card.

This card - which we might only play three of - generally always does six:

Searing Blaze

It does six and it impacts the board!

By extension, Skullcrack's combination of being situational and having to have mana open at a particular time makes me kind of hate it.

Because I've recently switched to 19 lands:

B/R Burn | Modern | Michael Flores

This particular aspect of the half-as-good Lava Spike just seems worse and worse from a deck-building standpoint. Also it has utterly failed to save me from Timely Reinforcements, like, ever.

The Rise of Dredge

Isn't Skullcrack back, now that Dredge has returned to Top Five Modern popularity?

Isn't Skullcrack great against not just a big Gnaw to the Bone but other big life gain spells like Timely Reinforcements or Sphinx's Revelation? All cards that are played in decks that are hard for Burn to beat?

No.

I've come to this conclusion: Burn is great when you can kind of pick your spot. Awesome matchups with Phoenix and Death's Shadow; equally good against Infect and Humans.

On the other hand you can like never beat Bogles. If people play Bogles and Dredge you are mostly helpless. There aren't even cards that you can play that can realistically get you back in these matchups. And if you wanted to fight Dredge with a big, meaningful, spell... Would it really be Skullcrack instead of a graveyard-whomping haymaker?

My conclusion is certainly not that you shouldn't play Skullcrack when you already have it (even though I said not to bring it in versus Golgari). I'm more in Wrapter's camp that you shouldn't play it at all because there are so many actually awesome options; and you should pick a configuration that maximizes the matchups you can win, rather that wasting resources on ones that you won't win consistently, even when you draw what you supposedly wanted. In the bay case - and this is coming from me - pick another deck.

Also seven is barely more than six, am I right?

LOVE

MIKE

TAGS articles, theory, constructed, analysis, burn, modern, decklist, michael flores, 03052019, skullcrack

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