Modern Mondays: Red/White Burn

When you think Red/White in Modern, you probably first think of Lightning Helix. If you think of the same thing in Standard, you'd probably think Boros Charm. When doing a deck that revolves around direct burn and you implement white in addition to red, Lightning Helix and Boros Charm are definitely the two you want.

     

Red/White Burn

3rd Place: Red Battle Games FNM: Danville, VA 28 February 2014

Creatures x2 Spark Elemental x2 Ash Zealot x2 Spark Trooper Land x4 Clifftop Retreat x4 Sacred Foundry x2 Plains x10 Mountain	Other Spells x4 Awe Strike x4 Lightning Bolt x4 Boros Charm x4 Lightning Helix x4 Searing Blood x4 Mizzium Mortars x2 Molten Rain x4 Rift Bolt Planeswalkers x2 Ajani Vengeant x2 Koth of the Hammer
Sideboard x2 Pithing Needle x4 Echoing Ruin x1 Anax and Cymede x2 Molten Rain x4 Metal Fatigue x2 Wear // Tear

I would argue that this is the easiest deck you could build and play. It's really straight forward. You cast spells each turn dealing direct damage to opponents or to get rid of creatures (the point of Searing Blood and Mizzium Mortars). The creature base is actually pretty scarce. You have three different, and two of those won't last the turn.

    

So Spark Elemental and Spark Trooper are meant to last the turn and go away. In fact, I was playing my friend in Round 5 and he had gotten down to 6 life (after burn, a previous Spark Trooper, and his shocklands and fetch lands) and I topdecked a Spark Trooper while he was tapped out. Of course, Iona, Shield of Emeria locked me down in Game 2 (the deck was 4 Color Gifts Ungiven), but I was fast enough in the other two to win.

  

Let's talk planeswalkers... Ajani Vengeant is important because he either locks down an opponent, or he uses Lightning Helix. In one instance, I was able to pull off a -7 and then drop my second Ajani. Koth is great because you can use your land and then attack with it. I've done well to swing at people with my Mountains (or Sacred Foundrys) and only once did someone kill a land. Most people let it through. I also did a -5 in a game with him. These two both help the deck immensely.

As far as the sideboard goes, I found Pithing Needle to be very important as well as Wear//Tear and Echoing Ruin. Pithing Needle I used to lock down a Phenax & Consuming Aberration (on Game 2 in a match, someone had me mill 21 cards with that combo in two separate turns. Of course, Phenax gives Consuming Aberration the activated ability, so on it's own it wasn't a great call, but when seeing this combo be pulled off, it definitely was the best call. Anax and Cymede needs to go. I really don't know what I was thinking there. The only other thing is most of my sideboard was for locking down the Affinity decks run at my local FNM, so I wanted to be sure I had a ton of artifact hate.

I went 4-1 for the night with this deck (which put me in 3rd place). 1st went to my opponent for Round 1 who built a spiteful burn deck as a joke to screw with people. One game I was mana screwed (only red mana, no white for my Lightning Helix or Ajani) and the other he imprinted Lightning Strike (yes, the theros 2 mana 3 damage spell) on Isochron Scepter and kept hitting me with it. I've talked about 3 of my matches, and the others were against Goblins and Galvanic Juggernaut and then the other deck was White Weenies which succumbs to burn easily. Had there been a couple Soldier of the Pantheon it would have made my job harder, but I took out a Favored Hoplite with a suspended Rift Bolt, killed a Hero of Iroas, and then on my turn after a Brimaz was played, I happened to have a Mizzium Mortars in hand.

Overall, this is a nice deck, but it is a little pricey. One Ajani and one Koth came from Duel Decks, Modern Masters played a nice role in the Lightning Helix area, and Premium Deck Series: Fire & Lightning filled in a lot. The rest came from my collection of cards and playsets of lands. I'm really quite pleased how this came out.

Thanks for stopping by today and if you are going to GP Richmond, I wish you luck.