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Okay, okay... Maybe it wasn't assassinating your best friend bad... But it was pretty disappointing.

Boros Blitz | Modern | Michael Flores

• Companion (1)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Clever Lumimancer
• 4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Soul-Scar Mage

• Instants (22)
• 3 Boros Charm
• 4 Manamorphose
• 3 Mutagenic Growth
• 4 Crash Through
• 4 Lava Dart
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Mishra's Bauble

• Lands (18)
• 2 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 3 Mountain
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 3 Sunbaked Canyon
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (14)
• 1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 3 Soul-Guide Lantern
• 1 Shattering Spree
• 3 Unholy Heat
• 3 Kor Firewalker
• 1 Path to Exile
• 2 Prismatic Ending

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The shell of the deck I picked was a Strixhaven-informed Boros Blitz update. The only thing I can say that is particularly unique are the four Kor Firewalkers in the sideboard. Maybe an over-anticipation? I've actually never sleeved all four Firewalkers before but I kind of wanted to flex on account of having the Manamorphose set in the main. Probably not optimal; but I assume worth mentioning.

As you probably know a few weeks ago I saw a sign announcing the return of Modern Mondays to a local LGS. This prompted me to update my beloved Modern Red Deck. I guess I should differentiate Modern Burn at this point? I suppose from the Next Level Deck-building perspective I was always playing some version of The Lava Spike deck - whether with Bump in the Night as an extra class of Lava Spikes, or even that time I temporarily subbed in Forked Bolt during a surge in Elves popularity.

But the Boros Blitz decks of today are kind of like hybrid Infect decks that have some ability to close out the last few points outside The Red Zone. They're Red Aggro in the sense of Sligh or even Fires of Yavimaya... Some haste, some Lightning Bolts, some synergy... But none of the overwhelming incentives that I had actually grown to love about playing Modern over the last decade, sadly.

More on that in a sec.

The unkindest cut of all? The current sad?

Like sixty percent of the prospective attendees of Monday's Modern event showed up without proof of vaccination! Multiple came over from New Jersey; others were either oblivious or just unvaccinated (which would be doubly bad if sauntering around the store unmasked). But anyway: Event never fired. No shade on the well-meaning organizers. Hopefully next time?

I did get some games in before leaving a few hours before expected, and learned a ton: Very little of it good. Like, my opponent was on Grixis Death's Shadow and I managed to win exactly zero fun games. The first time was just ring rust. I lost a game where I drew four Lightning Bolts! Just pilot error... And maybe I flatter myself, but the kind of pilot error the writer of The Chained to the Rocks Experiment or On Becoming a Fire God in Central Florida would simply never have made. Against a Death's Shadow deck? Come on.

But I also learned a lot about my deck and my relationship to it. Steel your loins, friends. These are The Top 8 Reasons Boros Blitz Ain't Your Daddy's [Red] Deck

I Have Like No Transferable Skills

That interview with Tom, at a time when he was about the most consistent player on the Pro Tour, is one of my favorite articles I've ever done... And mostly because I uncovered the above quote. Tom talked about not preparing exhaustively for specific formats, rather choosing decks where he could draw on a body of skill and experience, kind of morphing them to fit the format he was in.

This is essentially the mantra I've taken into Modern (and Legacy before that) for the better part of the last decade. I have a set of rules on how to build a Red Deck - ahem, I guess we should really emphasize a Lava Spike deck - and not just how, but when to play it. This website is covered in articles about Why I Hate Skullcrack or why 2 mana spells suck.

I was really excited by some of the new cards, not just from Modern Horizons II, but Strixhaven.

This card in particular seemed like a godsend to me.

I played in two large Modern events in late 2019. Which I realize sounds like two years ago now, but they "feel" recent given the amazing disappearing 2020. I played pretty well in both but lost to Big Spell creature decks in the Top 8s of each. Decks like Amulet and GriShoalBrand are simply not very good at interacting (versus goldfishing) so I figured I'd just be upgrading my beloved strategy with a potential turn two kill.

It turns out that this deck is not my beloved deck.

Before I swapped Bump in the Night for Soul-Scar Mage in Mono-Red I just didn't play creatures that didn't have haste. This deck is chock full of creatures that don't have haste. 75% of its creatures don't have haste! What am I? Wild Nacatl guy now?

I used to know how to play patiently and pulse my spells, force my opponent into a corner; take advantage of how cheap my cards were. Now I don't have choices. I have to tap my mana main phase because that's the only way to get offense going. I used to know how to play from behind and just rope the opponent in. Now... Your game is on the battlefield. Maybe you have a Mutagenic Growth to save your guy from a Lightning Bolt but most of the time? If they try to kill it, your dude is probably dead.

Worst maybe, I have always been really good at conserving my life total. Even baaaaack in the day, back when I was an Atarka's Command guy, I would side out Atarka's Command in the mirror so that I would never, ever, have to search for an untapped Stomping Ground (unlike a Wild Nacatl player). I was the first one ever to get the side-eye for "Standard" card Inspiring Vantage. Now? Half the time you have to start on 17 just to get your Lumimancer down on turn one because that's the guy you drew.

These all sound like pure negatives. They're not. This deck has awesome capabilities and a pure speed I would once have seen as a luxury. I just don't have the body of skills to draw on what makes this deck awesome. My skills are sadly not transferable the way they were Naya to Boros; or Boros to Rakdos or Mono-Red. All those decks played Lava Spikes.

Which is doubly head scratching as I do now own a set of original border Lava Spikes which didn't get sleeved up :/

For That Matter, I Have No Skills

In my defense I have never had to physically declare a Companion before.

I mean, raise your hand if you've played a sanctioned tournament where you had a Companion in your physical deck. That's what I thought.

The Cards All Do Different Things

One of the strengths of the Lava Spike / Burn variants is that even if the cards don't all technically do the same thing, they have predictable outcomes relative to a very - very - consistent investment in mana (ideally 1 mana).

These cards all deal three damage for 1 mana. Rift Bolt is the most clunky of the group, except the 30% or so of the time it's less clunky than Skewer the Critics. But especially when your land / spell ratio is perfect - which it can be, for like three turns if that's what you need - this redundancy makes for a very steady level of speed and difficult-to-interact-with output.

[Lava Dart] [Lightning Bolt] [Seal of Fire]

These cards all set up Spectacle for 1 mana or less. If you have a turn to give, you can add Rift Bolt to that list.

These cards are kinda sorta same-sies.

... And so are these. Which is kind of odd as Goblin Guide and Soul-Scar Mage are not same-sies. If you have a turn to give, Soul-Scar Mage becomes better than Monastery Swiftspear if you can believe that!

Now let's look at the Boros Blitz cards...

These guys are redundant around the one in that they are potentially high impact / high damage for only 1 mana of investment... But they're not redundant to each other. Each is kind of redundant to Soul-Scar Mage but also kind of not. Each of the new 1-drops is super different from anything we've ever had before. Dragon's Rage Channeler has the weirdest kind of Prowess ever (that is somehow capped at three), and Clever Lumimancer somehow can't set up Spectacle. So, I guess we don't play any?

This triggers our historical Prowess guys but not Clever Lumimancer... and Dragon's Rage Channeler kind-of. Kind-of??? How are you supposed to plan for "kind-of"? I guess with Surveil?

I swore off of 2 mana spells back in 2018, so I haven't sleeved up a Boros Charm in literally years. Certainly, it was an old friend of great helpfulness. But back in the day Boros Charm was kind of this vanilla "deal one more damage for one more mana" oddball that sometimes humiliated Death's Shadow players who used their Engineered Explosives on the wrong player's turn. In this deck it's literally there to deal double damage, sometimes with the help of...

Hold up. There is a card that literally does nothing if you don't have an unblocked attacker? I get that this card is all kinds of baller in Infect but, again, Google "transferable skills" (or my lack thereof).

Both the Surveil and Delirium on Dragon's Rage Channeler Are Important

Man, this was tricky to learn.

Basically my "testing" for the event that never fired was taking test draws on the kitchen table.

The Surveil part of the card is extremely difficult to practice without an actual human opponent. Like, whether you want to keep a spell - or even a land - is going to be dependent on if you think you're going to be playing the next turn, for instance.

Delirium is essential to the card for obvious reasons. You only have one class of Artifact, so it is often important to flip a Creature into the graveyard using Surveil in order to not have a 1/1 for one in The Red Zone. This is complicated, specialized, and not at all redundant to anything else going on in the deck. At least having to attack every turn (but with flying) mitigates one's under-developed combat skills.

The Amount of Mana You Have in Play is Also Weirdly Important

Don't get me wrong. I've had 3 mana in play before. I've had four! Or five! Usually in games I didn't win. But having to have three in play so I can sequence a Boros Charm? That is a pile of jigsawed cardboard I wasn't expecting to have to puzzle together.

And Manamorphose is obviously a dumb, dumb card. But whether I choose , , or even ... I feel like I'm doing it wrong as often as right. That's because rather than just playing the cards we draw (or some predictable proportion of cards we haven't drawn yet, but that all ultimately do the same thing) this deck does a lot of gambling. "I really hope to hit [Creature] / [Artifact] on this blind Surveil" is a pretty common situation before declaring an attack with Dragon's Rage Channeler.

The Opponent's Cards are Somehow Suddenly Good

The prospect of getting my 0/1 creature Lightning Bolted... And then just not doing anything proactive on the second turn... Man, that's new.

Additionally, the kinds of hands you can keep are super different. With the Lava Spike Deck, you can keep basically any hand that has 2-3 lands and 4-5 spells. Like all of them. Some you might be priced into a Goblin Guide (which can be tricky if the opponent is Death's Shadow, but still generally fine). But rock and roll, you know?

Boros Blitz you basically have to have a creature to keep a hand, and then if that creature dies? Man, you might have just lost on turn two. I look forward to playing against some non-interactive goldfish players who I can destroy on turn two instead!

Tons of New Things Can Go Wrong

Did I mention they can kill your creature?

Blocking your creature might force you to use half your hand to just not lose it!

KIlling your creature after you've invested 2-3 pump spells into it? Barf.

Getting the colors wrong on Manamorphose is something you can probably control (that still sucks when you don't)... But it's something that can go wrong.

To be fair one thing that can go very, very right is flipping a Lava Dart with Surveil. That's a free spell and can be tons of free damage, especially with a not-free Boros Charm.

I Should Probably Just Own Two Red Decks, LOL

So last week I pasted all the new cards I ordered here on CoolStuffInc.com

The Boros Blitz deck has a surprisingly narrow overlap with the cards I have historically liked to play. So I figure maybe buy a second set of Soul-Scar Mages and just own two Red Decks! That would be cool, right? I mean I own basically all the newly-bordered original-border Monastery Swiftspears already.

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BRB, digging into my piggy bank to afford a play set of this precocious monkey:

I'll let you know how this goes.

LOVE

MIKE