#5- The Best Things in Life Are Cheap, Lightning Bolt and the "Burn" deck

Name: Lightning Bolt
Casting Cost: R
Type: Instant
Effect: Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Rarity: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Revised, 4th edition Common.

Lightning Bolt is the archetypal red damage spell. It’s cheap, common, and instant, and deals damge to a creature or player. It was the first burn spell, and was the basis for a lot of the first burn decks. It was the third most powerful of the five “boons” (Ancestral Recall and Dark Ritual being obviously more powerful) and was still considered way too powerful when 5th edition came out. Though it will certainly never be printed ever again, its legacy lives on in modern burn spells and decks.

[Feature- BURNBURNBURNBURN!]
Which brings us to the present day. Burn will always be a good archetype, dealing ridiculous amounts of damage for 3 or less mana. Some modern day Lightning Bolt variants cost one (Shock, Lava Spike, Rift Bolt), 2 (Magma Spray, Incinerate), 3 (Char, Flame Javelin), or zero (Flameblast). What is it about these spells that gives control mages fits? Simple: That can be played at instant speed at the end of the control mages turn, forcing them to tap down on their own turn to counter.

Burn (AKA “Sligh”) is almost always an incredibly fast deck capable of winning on turn 4 or 5 without relying on some degenerative combo. It simply burns face, targeting creatures only when absolutely necessary.

The most popular red deck in Standard to call itself “burn” currently is Demigod Deck Wins, which eternaldeath09 discussed a while back. While the deck can certainly be fast, it’s not really a burn deck, because it runs almost twice as many creatures as direct damage. It’s latest anti-Kitchen Finks tech (Magma Spray) can’t even target players, and it plays more like a midrange deck, using its best spells to target creatures. While it certainly is effective, it's just not a burn deck.

HERE is a Standard Burn deck.

This deck has all the “Anti-Control” tech you’ll ever need-- burn spells! In addition to being cheap to construct like most burn decks, it also is pretty easy to pilot. Simply burn them when they end their turn, and you’ll get there. Once you hit three mana, you can play every spell in the deck (pre-side, where you’ll need four to cast ‘Barbs and Ricochet). If they tap out to counter it on their turn, then you simply play Hell’s Thunder on yours. And if your stuck in a long game, kill their threats and beat them with Ghitu Encampment.

Burn decks work the same in every format, including Extended, Legacy. I won't bother discussing Vintage Burn, because it's almost exactly the same as Legacy, and is a LOT worse in Vintage due to turn 1/2 combos. You're probably just better off not playing Vintage.

Burn decks will always be around in some form or another to help red mages who believe in speed and simplicity, and that a slow, painful death just takes too damn long. Red is a powerful color, a good foil for "the best color in Magic," blue. It has non-basic land hate to cripple expensive control decks, artifact hate for Stax, Affinity, and their ilk, and many other useful tools of victory.

Burn is always powerful because it not only beats the slow decks, but it also races easily against any creature-based aggro deck, and can kill just as fast, if not faster, than many combo decks.

It just goes to show that the best things in life are cheap.

Nice review Kyle, I'm planning on building a DDW deck or some kind of RDW deck in the future and this helps explain the "intricacies" of burn.

rofl....couldn't help myself

Despite the joke good review it was well worth the X many weeks we waited from the previous one