How to take losses better as a Burn Player
General forum
Posted on Oct. 30, 2022, 2:57 p.m. by gearhead596
As a life long burn/RDW player in every format, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer,and standard when relevant. I want to start a thread so us red mages have a place to look for encouragement when taking the Big L!
One piece of advice I like to give is learn to take losses. And be prepared to take them more often. And have them feel worse than losses with other decks as well. It's just the nature of the deck
The Burn Deck and its Cousin RDW are extremely linear and redundant, your game plan is to deal 20 damage as fast as possible everytime and you can not usually deviate from this. Because of that nature you will take losses to bad top decks more often than other decks and will you often be easier to hate out post side board.
Also while burn seems very simple you can often make one wrong move and lose the entire game, where as other decks are much more forgiving on this front.
All in all, I love Burn/RDW and I cant see myself seriously playing another type of Deck competitively at least. Always push past the hate and really practice the Deck inside and out. I'm still learning all the time.
Feel free to add your tips As well!
Dead_Blue_ says... #3
“Red Mages” pffftttt more like cavemen
(only a joke plz don’t any one get offended)
October 31, 2022 12:19 a.m.
gearhead596 says... #4
Lol, I'm used to the jokes it's part of the fun! Amd good add grim flyer something I never though about but you are totally right!
October 31, 2022 12:21 a.m.
Don't play burn. - a non-burn player.
Since that's neither helpful nor relevant, and since my forays into burn decks were plagued with bad decisions and failure to evaluate threats, I'm going to offer some general thoughts.
First, in my experience, if someone gets salty when they lose with a burn deck, they're probably going to get salty when they lose with any deck. Treat people with respect, accept the loss, and move on. If it's a tournament setting, keep in mind that everyone's there to win it all, and only one person can.
On a more technical side, and sort of combining wallisface's comment and the OP, keep notes on how you lost (or won). Was the game decided by a topdeck race? Did your opponent seem to be having mana problems? Did your deck feel like it ran smoothly, and you just got outplayed, or faced a bad matchup? Was there one moment or decision that swung the game, or was it a steady path to the conclusion? While playtesting, I sometimes ask my opponent if I could record the match for later evaluation, and I always try to discuss the match afterward. Learn from mistakes, develop successes, and keep improving.
October 31, 2022 2:35 p.m.
You don't make many choices while playing Burn, but the choices you do make are some of the hardest decisions in Magic. Remember: you're a combo deck where the combo is three Mountains and seven Lightning Bolts. And just like other combo decks, knowing when to "go off" is important. Yeah, sometimes Storm has to use Grapeshot as removal, but no, it's not ideal.
You're playing by a similar set of rules as Burn. Sometimes, you have to Lightning Bolt a threat, but realize you have to make up for it. You have to determine whether or not your "combo" still works. It's like each Rift Bolt is a Dark Ritual and your last burn spell is the Tendrils of Agony. If you waste a "Dark Ritual" dealing with something, ask yourself if you still have a good enough hand to continue the combo?
November 7, 2022 8:52 a.m.
Daveslab2022 says... #7
Burn can be considered a combo deck in that aspect, but even better is that the “combo” pieces like you mentioned can be used outside of the combo. Dark ritual only ever makes . But lightning bolt can be a combo finisher, or it can be an enabler for the rest of the deck by clearing out blockers.
wallisface says... #2
One thing worth noting with these sorts of decks, is that the games you win will often happen very quickly (4ish fast turns of blasting-face), whereas the games you lose often take a much longer period of time (the opponent resolves a Kor Firewalker then slowly whittles you down at their leisure).
This means that while the win ratio of the deck might sit around 50%, the actual time in-game playing a losing position is going to be much higher than this (because winning games end so quickly). I guess its important to understand that and not get discouraged by this.
Keeping a record of your games might help to let your brain know the deck’s doing better than it feels.
October 30, 2022 3:19 p.m.