1. Kill Your Darlings

Jackal Pup

Mogg Fanatic

Goblin Guide

Monastery Swiftspear

... And Voldaren Epicure?

Red Aggro decks have long leaned on their offensive 1-drops to get the drop on the opponent; to start racking up damage; to make the heroic late-game chump block so that they can finish the game with direct damage. Well not Jackal Pup, maybe... But Mogg Fanatic did twice as good a job of it so made up.

But in the tradition of King, of Faulkner, of whomever Faulkner stole the quote from, I realized that to innovate the Pauper Red Deck I might have to kill darling Voldaren Epicure. I mean... What else could I cut?

I wanted to try this piece:

To me, this card looks like a mistake.

Most of the rest of the cards with this kind of effect word it in one or more ornery ways. Grab the Prize asks you to discard a card as an additional cost; whereas Highway Robbery lets you discard on resolution (if you want to). If you don't discard to Highway Robbery, no harm/no foul... You just don't get to draw two cards.

Which is what makes Romantic Rendezvous special. Unlike the others, I could topdeck this when I was otherwise spent and just draw two cards outright! Does whatever a spider can, am I right?

That left me with this:

Burn | Pauper | Michael Flores

• Creatures (15)
• 3 Kessig Flamebreather
• 4 Guttersnipe
• 4 Highway Robbery
• 4 Sneaky Snacker

• Instants (15)
• 3 Fireblast
• 4 Fiery Temper
• 4 Lava Dart
• 4 Lightning Bolt

• Sorceries (12)
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Grab the Prize
• 4 Romantic Rendezvous

• Lands (18)
• 18 Mountain

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Red Elemental Blast
• 4 Pyroblast
• 4 Searing Blaze
• 4 Smash to Smithereens
• 2 Faerie Macabre

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The other main change that I made after my recent second place at the big Trios event was to want four copies of Guttersnipe. I ended up cutting the fourth Fireblast (like everyone else, sadly)... But Kessig Flamebreather seemed like the next-worst card after that.

2. That Was Easy

This, I felt, was overall a different enough Burn deck that I'd want to just play it in a tournament and write about it... Especially with my previous sideboard changes. I had found myself siding in three Searing Blazes a lot. A Searing Blaze is in some wise just better than any card in the main deck. Why not eight?

My little cabal has gone back and forth on graveyard hate quite a bit. Obviously you don't want Relic of Progenitus. It not only costs mana, but you yourself are a graveyard deck. What are the chances it doesn't take at least a Lava Dart with it? And maybe some Snacker action? Just bad. Tormod's Crypt is much better if you're in the market for something that can be interacted with by Masked Vandal; but it has the bonus of triggering Guttersnipe.

I ultimately went for Faerie Macabre. Which doesn't have to be exposed to Masked Vandal, and is equally zero mana to Tormod's Crypt.

So, the tournament: Tuesday night League at Hex & Company.

The challenger: My new Red Deck

How did it go?

Round One: Eldrazi

Key Cards: Lightning Bolt, Brood Birthing, Hand of Emrakul, Writing Chrysalis

The concept here is to make lots and lots of Eldrazi Spawn. The deck has a pocket combo between Brood Birthing and any incumbent Eldrazi Spawn, which can help land a fast Hand of Emrakul... Which is what I was up against in Game 1.

Luckily my draw was outstanding. I got in with an even faster Sneaky Snacker, at which point it became Annihilator food.

He had a Lightning Bolt for my Guttersnipe, which was a theme for the match. Got it closely anyway.

Game 2 I had another outstanding draw, and got him to six pretty quickly with all direct damage in my hand. I led off on a Fiery Temper and passed the turn.

My thought here was that he had open and I didn't want to walk into Weather the Storm. The rest of my hand was a Fireblast and the other three Fiery Tempers. I went for the Fireblast on his upkeep.

I couldn't double spell, but I figured even if he had Weather the Storm I could probably finish it the next turn, given an untap. I had some dorks anyway.

So, he did not in fact have a Weather the Storm. Oh sweet summer child. It was far, far worse:

"Eldrazi."

I did not have "he gains 44 life in response to lethal Fireblast" on my bingo card, unfortunately. In fact I had never seen the card before.

Maybe I should have blocked? I wasn't really planning to die to the many, many 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn, but I probably should have respected the Writhing Chrysalis that they could buff. But come on, I wasn't coming back from +44.

Game 3 we both mulled to five; but his deck has fours and fives whereas mine has ones and twos. The first Guttersnipe got Bolted, but the second one stuck.

1-0.

3. Living the Dream

Round Two: Mono-Blue Faeries

Key Cards: Spellstutter Sprite, Ninja of the Deep Hours, Counterspell

This matchup seems super easy.

We played three games and I won them all; the third / fun game the most fun for me anyway!

Here are some kind of interesting / important tips.

1. I sided a whopping nine cards!
2. In came all five Blasts and all four Searing Blazes. As I said before, especially against a deck with almost universally tiny creatures, a Searing Blaze is better than basically anything in the main.
3. This was the first time I think I've ever sided out Grab the Prize. Grab the Prize has an additional cost of discarding a card (despite the upside) and is the only filtering spell that doesn't actually fix your hand very well. I also sided out Fireblast. I didn't think this was a "grand gestures" matchup, but rather one where we can prevent most of their advantages with much greater efficiency and exploit a non-Blast lack of removal.

I came very, very close to living the dream in Game 2.

So possibly as a result of siding out so many backbone / action type spells my hand in Game 2 was slow. But when I had about eight lands in play (yes, that slow) I drew Faithless Looting. I played it, discarded and got back some Sneaky Snackers, flashed it back, and all of a sudden my hand (or what was left of it) was perfect.

Mana 5-6 went into a Searing Blaze. Ka-pow!

And my last 2 mana (7-8) cast Romantic Rendezvous!

But I only almost lived the dream because my Guttersnipe trigger killed the opponent before I could [not discard a card and] draw two.

2-0

4. The Fall of Gondolin

Round Three: Elves

Key Cards: Arbor Elf, Priest of Titania, Wellwisher

Could my new Burn deck complete the League 3-0?

Elves was the last deck to stand in my way... And Elves has always been a great matchup!

In Game 1 I just drew a Lava Dart. The front half immediately took down a Priest of Titania and the back half waited for a Wellwisher that was never going to tap. In Game 1 you can largely keep them off their game because they need their little guys to stick or they're not doing much; and they don't have good answers to Guttersnipe in the main.

Game 2 he brought in a whopping 13 cards but my 4 Searing Blazes just lined up perfectly alongside a couple of great Sneaky Snacker draws. Nothing too dramatic. He just never had the window to cast Pulse of Murasa.

3-0

So that's it!

Four copies of Guttersnipe were great. I had been joking for months that I never really lost if I could untap with a Guttersnipe in play. So I just put myself in a position to have one in play more often. Fireblast was a hard cut, but my relatively few losses were to decks where Guttersnipe would have been better than a desperation Fireblast. That's how I made my decision.

I was also just lucky to dodge the nightmare matchups I had late in Trios like Bogles and Mono-White Weenie / Life Gain. For one night at least, I completed the Romantic Rendezvous with victory!

LOVE

MIKE