2009 States Primer Part Two: Introducing Red Black Burn

Right now I’m looking out my window, staring at a foot of snow. With the event site for my Provincial Championships 3 hours away under normal driving conditions you can imagine how long it would take to get there this weekend. Due to the increased likelihood of winding up in a ditch, I’m afraid that I’m not going to brave the journey, as much as I want to. For those of you who saw part one of my States Primer you might recall I promised a deck, so without any further ado:

Black Red Sunburn

3 Bloodchief Ascension

4 Burst Lightning

4 Lightning Bolt

3 Terminate

4 Blightning

4 Earthquake

4 Goblin Guide

4 Plated Geopede

4 Hellspark Elemental

3 Hell’s Thunder

2 Arid Mesa

1 Scalding Tarn

2 Marsh Flats

2 Verdant Catacombs

4 Teetering Peaks

4 Dragonskull Summit

4 Swamp

4 Mountain

SIDEBOARD

4 Duress

3 Pithing Needle

3 Volcanic Fallout

3 Deathmark

1 Terminate

1 Bloodchief Ascension

What a beauty.

Red Deck Wins has no game against Baneslayer. Not so with this deck. Bloodchief Ascension turns the burn mirror into a breeze and best of all we get to play Blightning. Nobody sees this deck coming. It has some of the best features of Barely Boros without the terrible weaknesses. If you were looking for a deck to play, then congratulations, you found it.

The deck bares a strong resemblance to the powerful red decks played at Worlds. In a nutshell, it ditches the 4 mana spells and x/1 men for powerful black cards and tweaks the mana base accordingly.

The Matchups:

Jund – A good matchup. Most of their spells are based on killing creatures and you have few of them. Half the time a Bloodbraid cascades into nothing relevant. The number one threat they have is Blightning. They may be tempted to remove their Pulses against you, so be sure to mention how great Bloodchief Ascention is against them before sideboarding. If you do a good sales job they will have one more dead card for you in games 2 and 3, because your Bloodchiefs come out along with a single Terminate for Duress. Terminate is OK against them but it is one of the few cards that aren’t great. If you want to make the matchup extra strong take out a Needle from the board and replace it with a Mind Rot to give you an extra virtual Blightning.

Boros – A good matchup. Take out 2 Goblin Guides and 2 Hell’s Thunder for 3 Fallout and 1 Bloodchief. You can often catch them for multiple creatures with your mass removal spells and a well-timed Blightning can prevent them from having an explosive turn. Skyfisher can be a minor problem, but it’s nothing to worry about as long as you don’t take to much damage early. An early Bloodchief will often win the game for you. Save your Terminates in case of Baneslayer when possible post-sideboard and the match will be a breeze.

Eldrazi Green – A good matchup. Take out your Goblin Guides and bring in a Bloodchief, a Terminate and 2 Deathmarks. Kill their big stuff before they can make tokens and pound them. They are often way too slow if you kill their mana elves.

Other good matchups include Mono Red, TurboFog UWR and Magical Christmas Land, all for obvious reasons.

There are a few tricky matchups. Bant and random white lifegain decks can prove to be problematic and Naya can be a bit tricky. If you expect to see a lot more Naya than Red and Boros consider maindecking an extra Terminate in place of a Bloodchief. Your sideboard strategy for these types of decks is to load up on targeted removal spells to kill the big threats like Baneslayer and Rhox War Monk.

In conclusion, this deck is a great choice for States. It gives you an excellent chance to win and is both fast and easy to play. It beats most of the popular decks out there and you have a big edge if they don’t have a sideboard strategy for you. No matter what you play, best of luck and have fun this weekend, because really thats what States is all about.

-Sean

Sean@power9pro.com

@SeanP9P on Twitter