Controlled bURn

What can YOU do to prevent wildfires? Apparently play today’s deck. There are a couple of reasons this might make sense. Option 1. You are an arsonist and playing Magic distracts you from your other passion. No? How about option 2. You partake in a Controlled bURn.

The idea of today’s brew is to use the speed of a burn deck, while adding some control to it, so that you can win the game quickly without allowing your opponent to do the same. The tricky part about a deck like this is deciding how much you want to focus on each aspect. Because burn decks are so consistent, I didn’t want to lose that, and chose aggression over control.

Ball Lightning. Originally these were actually Frenetic Efreets. Going back on deciding what aspect I wanted to focus on; I was thinking of just how hard the Efreets are to destroy versus how good they are at damaging the opponent. As I stated before, defense is secondary in this deck, which is why I replaced them with Ball Lightning. This decision also had an effect on the mana base, as they require RRR to cast. While I do not recommend changing a mana base for a single card, the rest of the deck tends to focus on Red as well, while the Blue cards are pretty splashable, so I thought it was worth doing.

Another change I made after my original draft of the deck was removing 2 Fact or Fiction for 2 more Fire // Ice. First of all, this card just screams burn control. Not only can it ping your opponent, but it can also take out 1-2 small creatures, control tempo, find you a new card, et cetera et cetera. The card is fantastic in this deck. So, why not play Fact or Fiction? While it can help you in the card advantage department, that’s looking at a long game that we are not looking to play. Fire // Ice can also generate CA, while also allowing us to focus on our game plan of burning the opponent first and controlling them second.

So if the deck wants to focus on being aggressive, why the Maze of Ith? Because of the low mana curve of the deck, it can afford to play a land that doesn’t produce mana. Because this is a red deck, many of your spells can’t take out big creatures, nor do you want that to be their main focus. Ith thus buys you time against decks such as those, and can be played as a singleton due to protection from counter magic. Maze also makes the Stifles particularly good in the deck because they can not only create tempo but also protect it from opposing Wastelands.

I know this is often the part of the article where I explain card choices, omissions, et cetera et cetera. I did that during the main part of the article because I thought it would be interesting for the readers to see how my thought process works when designing Ancient decks. I don’t know whether this inspires you or not, but I hope it at least gives you something to consider when building your own decks. This format has a vast number of options and it is important to consider which ones best fit in your game plan. Happy Brewing!

Controlled bURn

Land

1 Island

3 Mountain

4 Volcanic Island

4 Wasteland

1 Maze of Ith

8 Fetch lands

Total: 21

Creatures

4 Serendib Efreet

4 Ball Lightning

2 Grim Lavamancer

Total: 10

Spells

4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will

4 Stifle

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Chain Lightning

4 Counterspell

4 Fire // Ice

1 Psionic Blast

Total: 29

Sideboard

4 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Pyroclam

3 Blood Moon

1 Chain of Vapor

2 Annul

2 Pyroblast

2 Gilded Drake

TurboLand

When a deck name contains the word “turbo”, what sort of expectations do you have for it? To me, it means that the deck does something fast. Therefore, when I think of Turbo _____, my expectation is usually of a deck that is capable of winning quickly. So if you’re like me.. prepare to be disappointed by today’s brew. Don’t let the name fool you, it can be a very slow and control-y path to victory with this one. I am of course talking about TurboLand.

So how does it work? The general breakdown is that you want to get Exploration and Horn of Greed into play. Together, these combine for some serious ramp and serious card advantage. So how is a deck that combines both of those things so slow? The win conditions! Allow me to elaborate..

Despite containing the best manland ever made in Mishra’s Factory, it is not the biggest of beaters. What it does do however is tap for mana, avoid sweepers and pump itself and its fellow Factory Workers. These, along with Treetop Village and Faerie Conclave, are the vast majority of ‘creatures’ in the deck. There is one exception of course, the lone Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, which I included because it is a big beater with Shroud. Whether or not you want to play any is entirely on you.

Another sort of unsung win condition of TurboLand is Time Warp. The card is amazing when combined with the mana acceleration and card advantage of the deck, as both allow you to draw into and play Warps in the early stages of the game. Not only does this allow you to play even more lands and draw even more cards, but it provides you with additional opportunities to beat down on your opponent.

Crop Rotation is another 1-of in the deck, but I sort of wanted to play more of them. Obviously I decided not to eventually, but Crop is really great because it acts as a sort of double for any of your lands. The reason I decided against additional copies is because the deck just doesn’t contain that many toolbox lands. I had also considered replacing it with a Living Wish and putting Tabernacle and/or Karakas in the sideboard, but that is just a bit too slow versus the decks you want those cards against - especially Tabernacle.

Alright, so that about covers the deck right? What? It doesn’t? Oh, you want to know about THAT.. I know I know, Portent over Brainstorm seems strange. Surely this must be some sort of joke! Honestly, I know how weird it looks but the thing is, TurboLand does not contain any fetch lands; and without them Brainstorm can really hinder you. The fact of the matter is, even though Portent is a slowtrip, the deck already draws you a ton of cards so it doesn’t really matter. I recommend you try it out and see what slow/cantrip suits you.

Lastly, I want to talk about some cards I didn’t include in the deck. One of these cards was Summer Bloom. The reason I didn’t is actually quite simple – I needed to cut down on cards and it was a 1-of. Greener Pastures also got cut early on, but if you are going for a more control-y type of build then it might have some potential and could be worth looking into. Happy Brewing!

TurboLand

Land

1 Forest

1 Island

4 Tropical Island

4 Mishra’s Factory

4 Treetop Village

3 Faerie Conclave

4 Maze of Ith

4 Wasteland

4 Rishadan Port

1 Petrified Field

1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

1 Karakas

Total: 32

Creatures

1 Multani, Maro-Sorcerer

Total: 1

Spells:

4 Exploration

4 Horn of Greed

4 Portent

4 Force of Will

2 Daze

3 Counterspell

4 Time Warp

1 Crop Rotation

1 Nostalgic Dreams

Total: 27

Sideboard

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Naturalize

2 Elephant Grass

2 Evacuation

2 Zuran Orb

1 Gaea’s Blessing