... Well one person asked for it! Which is what you're reading right now!
The deck and sideboard we're working with in this article is slightly different from the last time I wrote about it...
Burn | Premodern | Michael Flores
- Creatures (16)
- 4 Ball Lightning
- 4 Grim Lavamancer
- 4 Jackal Pup
- 4 Mogg Fanatic
- Instants (17)
- 1 Price of Progress
- 4 Fireblast
- 4 Incinerate
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Shock
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Sulfuric Vortex
- Artifacts (6)
- 2 Cursed Scroll
- 4 Urza's Bauble
- Lands (19)
- 11 Mountain
- 4 Karplusan Forest
- 4 Wooded Foothills
SB: 3 Call of the Herd, 4 Naturalize, 2 Tranquil Domain, 2 Pyroblast, 2 Price of Progress, 1 Forest, 1 Lava Dart
Burn Mirror
"Burn", Red Deck, F*ck It We Ball, Dicks Burn... Whatever you call it, it is a staple of the Premodern format. Typically starting out with Jackal Pup and Mogg Fanatic on turn one, Burn wants to chop away at your life total in small increments before finishing you off with a flurry of Fireblasts.
One of the things most players don't understand is that Premodern Burn is like the best Gear One Burn deck ever. It is a worse Gear Two deck than Modern Burn because of the lack of Searing Blaze, Searing Blood, and Smash to Smithereens; but it excels at Gear One because it gets to play Fireblast and Lightning Bolt at the same time, which was never possible in historical Standard or Extended.
If you can execute successfully in Gear One, that is trump in the mirror. Outside of the multiple uncontested Jackal Pup draw, your opponent cannot usually interact with Gear One, no matter their sideboard plan. Mostly the suggestions here are an attempt to make Gear One difficult for the opponent to achieve in sideboard games, and to cement another Gear. In most cases both players will side out their Jackal Pups, meaning everyone is signed up to concede Gear One anyway. But in the case someone gets the right draw for it: watch out.
It's like the old Mike Tyson quote: You can be all plotting out your long game Call of the Herd plan and then get Fireblasted out. Ergo you have to both watch your own life total and try to pressure the opponent into blowing burn cards inefficiently. Like anything to get them to use a Seal of Fire! If the opponent has Seal of Fire you can basically never hit them with Ball Lightning and they have a down-payment to shift into Gear One or Gear Three as soon as their hand materializes.
I am not really sure who has the edge between Mono-Red and here...
I beat Jon Tchida in this matchup at LobsterCon (Traditional Dicks Burn v. F*ck It We Call), but I lost to Nathan Shue with his g/R build playing for Top 8. In that second matchup I don't think it had very much to do about build specifics. Nathan just drew way more Fireblasts than I did in the sideboard games, whereas I just drew an overabundance of Overloads.
On the subject of Overload, it's not very good, but it's better than Jackal Pup and has more text generally than Sulfuric Vortex. In the mirror Jackal Pup is one of the worst cards you can draw because it turns all of the opponent's burn spells into Searing Blood or Searing Blaze, allowing them to play Gear One and Gear Two simultaneously; when that happens they almost get Gear Three for free. Needless to say you don't want that.
Your sideboarding objectives in the mirror are twofold:
- Retard the opponent's ability to play a Gear (probably Gear Two)
- Ideally exert Agency to make it a Gear Three (Inevitability) game where you can out-last presumably their Gear Two.
Some versions of Mono-Red Burn don't even have sufficient sideboard slots to take out all their bad cards.
For example Flint Espil has won multiple Monthly webcam events with builds whose sideboards literally couldn't take out all the bad cards (one build even had Flame Rift). Flint is probably the Premodern player I respect the most (and he WON a monthlies) but would probably have been stuck keeping in Jackal Pup multiple times.
In most sideboard games where you have Lava Dart (or both players have Lava Dart), it's generally better to go second. I think that going second in the mirror is at a minimum underrated, but really underrated in sideboard games where you can have as many as four Lava Darts. The only real incentive to going first is that you can tempo the opponent and connect with the first Ball Lightning. But in games where one player has +3 or +4 Lava Dart instead of Jackal Pup that becomes increasingly remote. As such, going first is just starting with one fewer card.
Don't get me wrong: You still want to land Ball Lightning if you can, but you don't get a lot of bonus likelihood of doing so just by going first, as you might in Game 1.
When I won the meetup back in October, I think I only lost one total game and it was in the quasi-mirror. This is how I sided back then:
- -4 Jackal Pup
- -1 Price of Progress
- -2 Sulfuric Vortex
- +3 Call of the Herd
- +1 Naturalize
- +2 Lava Dart
- +1 Forest
The present sideboard has only one Lava Dart, which, again, is the best card in the mirror because it gives you long-term two-for-one Gear Two action but more importantly just cheap redundancy against Ball Lightning. Call of the Herd is good, but I'd think long and hard about tapping out for one on turn three if ya grok.
For the mirror, prioritize taking out 1) Jackal Pup, 2) Sulfuric Vortex, and 3) Price of Progress.
Price is kind of harmless. It's not that bad but it's also not good. Vortex can be used as a very inefficient Shock if you're going to win the next turn theoretically but I think I've lost literally every mirror game in Premodern that I've ever deployed one. Jackal Pup is bad and has GOT TO GO.
This is what I'd do:
- -4 Jackal Pup
- -1 Price of Progress
- -2 Sulfuric Vortex
- +3 Call of the Herd
- +2 Naturalize
- +1 Lava Dart
- +1 Forest
Naturalize is pretty bad. Like I said, I lost playing for Top 8 in the last round of LobsterCon because I drew 100 Overloads (which don't do any damage) after winning Game 1. You're already bringing in the Forest for Call of the Herd, so Naturalize isn't too offensive, but it's not exciting or anything. You're probably in a 2 Naturalize v. 2 Cursed Scroll situation, which is fundamentally behind, but does help to counter the opponent's Gear Two and potential Gear Three game plans going long. I hate taking ~3 damage to do it though.
Unless the opponent has a very lopsided list, like one of Flint's old monthly winners, they are very VERY unlikely to be trying to maintain a Gear One game plan, but they still have 1,000 1-toughness creatures. Lava Dart is just the best card you could ever dream of here, and also helps to justify the 20th land.
Side note on Forest: Don't generally think about the 20th land as a +Forest -Mountain swap. Forest casts Call of the Herd and helps to activate Cursed Scroll but doesn't actually contribute to your fundamental mana very much. Of your 41 Game 1 spells, Forest can only even help cast 8 (less than 20%), two of which are Cursed Scroll. Plus, you're bringing in Lava Dart which puts further long-term pressure on specifically your Mountains count (like more Fireblasts). So -Mountain +Forest makes very, very little sense.
Second side note on Forest: While this isn't mentioned in any of the +Forest recommendations in this document, you might want to do -Urza's Bauble rather than -Mountain. Again, Forest doesn't replace Mountain as a source of mana for the majority of the cards in this deck that require ,
, or one or more Mountains specifically... But removing an Urza's Bauble could help to mitigate flood.
You are playing to out-last the opponent here (ideally Gear Three) but a more tempo-oriented (and opportunistic) game plan would be Gear Two. Call of the Herd gives you inevitability because it's like 6 cards that trade for the opponent's premiere burn spells. Shock, Grim Lavamancer, Lava Dart, etc. don't trade with even one-half of a Call of the Herd. So, your plan is to use your burn spells to buy the time required to cast Call repeatedly and then beat down with them in the long game. Please make sure you don't expose yourself to an opportunistic Ball Lightning in the interim. That defeats the purpose of your sideboard plan because it catapults the opponent back into Gear One, where you have little hope of interacting with them once they have a six-point lead.
Replenish
Rumor has it that an extremely handsome and talented Planeswalker once did well with Replenish in a major Premodern tournament. With traits of both a U/W Control deck and an overpowered combo deck, Replenish can remove all your lands, defend itself with infinite vigilance, or untap all its lands while drawing cards... All while Countering Target Spell or sometimes Burying All Creatures.
Your sideboarding is going to vary a lot based on if the opponent has Exalted Angel. If they have Exalted Angel you actually want the cheap burn cards (Shock and potentially Incinerate) to kill Exalted Angel while it is still face-down. No one is beating you with a six-cost Exalted Angel unless they draw hella tempo-oriented defense and probably abandon their Game 1 plan (which, to be fair, is possible).
Here is a recent Pablo Marcos build.
Replenish | Premodern | Pablo Marcos
- Instants (12)
- 3 Frantic Search
- 3 Intuition
- 3 Mana Leak
- 3 Swords to Plowshares
- Sorceries (4)
- 4 Replenish
- Enchantments (19)
- 3 Seal of Cleansing
- 4 Attunement
- 4 Opalescence
- 4 Parallax Tide
- 4 Parallax Wave
- Lands (25)
- 4 Island
- 4 Plains
- 1 City of Traitors
- 4 Adarkar Wastes
- 4 Ancient Tomb
- 4 Flooded Strand
- 4 Skycloud Expanse
- Sideboard (15)
- 1 Swords to Plowshares
- 1 Seal of Cleansing
- 4 Meddling Mage
- 4 Orim's Chant
- 2 Chill
- 2 Tsabo's Web
- 1 Sphere of Law
This deck has 17 nonbasic lands, no Exalted Angel, but enchantment redundancies in Chill and Sphere of Law, both of which are great against Red Decks.
Luckily the whole point of Aaron building F*ck It We Call is to combat Chill players!
My Game 2 plan would be to shift into a different macro archetype... more CounterSliver than traditional Red Aggro in the parlance of Next Level Deck-building. You have MORE tempo than they do, but your plan is mostly to use your mana, attack, and counterplay their generally slow mana effectively rather than bowling them over offensively as you might in Game 1.
[On that note I think Replenish as it is currently conceived is a very good matchup for Red Decks in Game 1, especially if you draw two Jackal Pups or they draw an Ancient Tomb; when I beat hella Red Decks at LobsterCon 2023, I had a main-deck Solitary Confinement/Squee loop just for beating Aaron, which I did in the Top 8.]
- -4 Shock
- -2 Cursed Scroll
- -2 Sulfuric Vortex
- -3 Incinerate
- +4 Naturalize
- +2 Tranquil Domain
- +2 Pyroblast
- +2 Price of Progress
- +1 Forest
You're going to have to be fastidious with your keeps if you go this direction because you are relying more on creature damage than usual (Chill and Sphere of Law are bonkers against your burn plan though).
What you want is to land any clock (hopefully two Pups but beggars can't be choosers) and then just counter-play them mana effectively until the last turn, where you send all your burn. Playing around 3 Mana Leaks that might not even be in the deck after sideboarding is academic.
This plan takes out all the low-impact or low mana-to-damage-ratio cards for stuff that helps you keep playing. I'd take any trade that is mana neutral or better while you are still attacking. That's a winning game plan because they have like 4 total Swords to Plowshares against all of your creatures. You can break up all their four mana stuff with eight instant speed interplay, some of which are two-for-one or better.
Just note that while you have a lot of "removal" after side boarding you're not actually a very good Gear Two deck. Unless they play into Tranquil Domain your only card advantage is that they have 5 more lands than you do. If we're still on the Gear paradigm you're a Gear One deck, but kind of slow Gear One, but not necessarily Inevitable. A different way of thinking about it is that you've repositioned from Red Aggro to CounterSliver and are attacking the matchup from a completely different direction. Ultimately, you're using sideboard cards to prevent their sideboard cards from retarding your Gear One game plan, not playing to exhaust them, which is unrealistic against the CARD Replenish.
Tide Control
It's like a Draw-Go deck with a combo flourish! Tide Control brings together the most frustrating elements of peak Randy Buehler (Force Spike, Counterspell, and card drawing) with the one-sided mana control of Replenish's Parallax Tide combos. Stifle is great with Parallax Tide on turn five... But against our deck? Can be downright deadly against Wooded Foothills turn one.
I played this matchup about a bazillion times with Andy Levine prior to LobsterCon. I was very high on Tide Control as a result (Andy beat me repeatedly in testing)... So, of course we played first round at LobsterCon. I got that one but he won out and made Top 8. He's probably better than I am.
This is an extremely counterintuitive matchup. I assumed Burn would have the edge, but as I said, Andy crushed me repeatedly in testing so that was a wrong assumption.
They have a lot of land, so are generally fine trading even an early Quicksand for Jackal Pup or especially Ball Lightning. I think you have an outside shot at beating them in Gear Two because they only have 6-8 creature lands for total offense, but you'd have to be pretty clever to pull that off. I never have been able to.
When I beat Andy I just drew a lot of Red Elemental Blasts and resolved my spells [again, I was Mono-Red], which is something that the current g/R build can't do as easily. On the up-side, this was literally one of the main matchups where Tranquil Domain and Naturalize were designed to shine.
Game 1 my plan would generally be Gear One if possible. Your stuff is cheaper than theirs, so they have to line up their answers pretty consistently to not get overrun. That's the theory anyway. But Force Spike against a low land count, Mana Leak, and Quicksand are all good at elongating the game. They kind of HAVE to combo you because unfettered mana in the late game will allow you to play Gear Three. Again, that's the theory but Powder Keg can take the edge off of Cursed Scroll.
I think with THIS build I'd mirror my sideboarding to the Replenish matchup. Go for CounterSliver; tempo + mana efficient counterplay.
- -1 Cursed Scroll
- -4 Incinerate
- -4 Ball Lightning
- -2 Sulfuric Vortex
- +4 Naturalize
- +2 Tranquil Domain
- +2 Pyroblast
- +2 Price of Progress
- +1 Forest
I'd recommend taking out Ball Lightning here because they have Quicksand + their game plans more centrally revolve around attacking your mana than Replenish (though, some builds of Replenish have very similar tools). Pyroblast is better than it is against Replenish, and it was already good there.
Because you have Tranquil Domain don't be afraid to use Naturalize on artifacts, including Mishra's Factory; you're taking out Incinerate which impacts your ability to shift into a Gear Two game. I left one Cursed Scroll because there are some players who will have zero Parallax Tide after sideboarding, and Cursed Scroll gets pretty good if you can answer their Chills.
Dreadnought Decks (Mono-Blue and U/W)
The true boogeyman of Premodern, the Dreadnought decks pair Phyrexian Dreadnought with Stifle or Vision Charm to present a 12/12 trampling creature as early as turn two! Their best draws do so with multiple "free" spell Counterspells... But from there? They can beat you several ways. U/W adds Meddling Mage and Swords to Plowshares for tempo and controlling elements, while Mono-Blue can borrow the technology from Replenish or Tide Control to present a one-sided Armageddon.
I'd approach these the same way. Mono-Blue isn't really getting anything that isn't going to give you; they're unlikely to morph into Tide Control, and even if they did that would make no sense. You're going to bring in your Naturalizes anyway, and Parallax Tide is four mana (really five) which gives you the CounterSliver counterplay plan from Replenish. They're just not likely to do it.
The problem here is combo speed, which is why play/draw is so important.
If you lose the roll in Game 1 it's really rough to win this matchup because they're likely on the play in Game 3. Their best draws in a go-first situation can combo you on turn two with double free spell backup.
You'll have to adjust your game plan based on your draw, but make sure to read Slow Playing the Beatdown; even Aaron himself swears by this strategy for the burn v. 12/12 matchups.
Recommendation:
- +1 Forest
- +4 Naturalize
- +2 Pyroblast
- -2 Sulfuric Vortex
- -1 Price of Progress
- -4 Incinerate
You can vary the Incinerates pulls between Incinerate, Shock, and Urza's Bauble, but I'd lean on taking out all the Incinerates and leaving all the Shocks, especially against 12/12. Shock is at its best against
12/12 and a wise
player is going to name Shock with Meddling Mage, especially in Game 1. This will often force you to use a three damage burn spell (e.g. a Lightning Bolt) to kill a Meddling Mage, which sucks because it's one free life point.
You get a bonus in that Naturalize can't be Blue Elemental Blasted; but costing twice as much as Overload for essentially the same effect (while putting pressure on your mana) is an incredible minus in this matchup. I'd much, Much, MUCH rather be Mono-Red than g/R if I knew I were up against a room full of 12/12; so if you anticipate that, maybe think about your archetype selection.
B/G RecSur
Survival of the Fittest. Recurring Nightmare. Together again! This new look at an old strategy combines the surgical Silver Bullet hate of Bone Shredder, Uktabi Orangutan, and Withered Wretch with the ability to do it all over again... And again... and a prohibitive amount of life, or oodles and oodles of Squirrel tokens...
I actually have no experience playing this matchup from the Red side.
Weirdly, RecSur (the current en vogue incarnation of The Rock in Premodern) is kind of a new thing, despite it being the 1999 Malka deck versus The Rock [and His Millions] being the 2001 version.
I have always loved The Rock matchup from the Red side; and weirdly RecSur only has one Ravenous Baloth and no Spike Feeders. Their sideboard game plan revolves around casting Tempting Wurm to race you, so note that permanents are better here than they are in the abstract.
Ultimately this is a new deck and more testing is probably needed here. The current thinking is that while Jackal Pup seems bad against 8 Walls and a ton of Tempting Wurms, Jackal Pup is a good tag team partner to Ball Lightning. This shifts your game plan from ~40 cards that each do something individually to more of a combo deck, but based on the recent Duress Crew data (under 40% for the Red Deck), maybe you have to kind of assume something is going for you to take the win.
Elves
Long considered the best Survival of the Fittest deck in Premodern, Elves is the quintessential typal creature deck, combining the speed and consistency of a bazillion Llanowar Elves into Priest of Titania, to mow down opposing armies with Masticore or Overrun them with Kamahl, Fist of Krosa. More recent innovations in the strategy have borrowed elements from Secret Force or Lanny Rock to lean into combo or mid-range game plans that mold themselves to the opposition (as long as that opposition isn't Goblins).
I think Elves might be a weirdly bad matchup for g/R.
Like I always thought the matchup was overrated for the Red Deck. Not that it wasn't favorable... But a lot of people talk about the Red Deck side like Elves is a cakewalk. But there are things the Elves deck can do, like morph into Natural Order, gain life with Wellwisher, lock down the board with Masticore, hide behind Walls, etc. that make it something other than lopsided.
The game plan for over a year has been Gear Two. I switched from taking out all my Vortexes (don't impact the battlefield) to bringing in more Vortexes once I understood that. Vortex becomes your primary source of damage, allowing you to use all your burn on creatures and preventing them from achieving critical mass. This version of course has no additional Vortexes.
I don't know to what degree I'd play Naturalize / fight their Survival as Naturalize does no damage.
Their sideboard plan can be seemingly anything. Some will be Natural Order; some will be +100 Wall of Blossoms and Call of the Herd, morphing into a mid-range deck a la RecSur. Some will just try to trade and grind you out with Genesis and Wellwisher.
Locally people are playing Wall of Roots main (I do). I think Jackal Pup under-performs as a result, in the abstract.
My bias is to do this in the dark:
- -1 Price of Progress
- +1 Lava Dart
Your Pups aren't likely to impress, but on the play they might deal a ton. Your best card is Grim Lavamancer and you're likely to win every game you draw Grim Lavamancer and three lands; but they're not overly strategic in any direction. My bias is for Gear Two but this is not a good Gear Two build for specifically the Elves matchup. I wouldn't play Call of the Herd or anything like that because they're just better at that game plan (maybe?) and you'd be playing into their strengths. You want Lavamancer and Vortex, mostly.
On the draw, or if they go to 7 Walls or something maybe:
- -4 Jackal Pup
- -1 Price of Progress
- -1 Ball Lightning
- +1 Lava Dart
- +4 Naturalize
- +1 Forest
... But I really don't love this. To be fair you don't NEED a lot of help in this matchup, but it's not as easy as people make it out to be IMO.
TerraGeddon
Terravore. Armageddon. Get the picture?
I can't imagine losing this matchup. Of course the last time I had the conscious thought that I couldn't imagine how I could lose, I was the one with the Weathered Wayfarer and Andy Probosco burgled a PT invite from me (don't worry I got a different one the next week).
No while I can't imagine losing this matchup, that's not what the Duress Crew data says (40%; in favor of TerraGeddon). Theoretically Burn variants are all challenging for TerraGeddon variants. In Game 1 their main way of not being utterly Gear One'd by you is some Swords to Plowshares. Even their nut combo of Terravore into Armageddon / Cataclysm is kind of synergistic with your card Fireblast.
As Max McCall argued in my Premodern group, for six out of ten TerraGeddon mages to be taking this matchup, it's with sideboards full of hate enchantments. That's actually good against the default Red Deck, but less so against F*ck It We Call.
The tension is not siding in too many anti-enchantment cards to lower your damage capacity. Let's look at Javi Lugo's deck from the Top 8 of LobsterCon:
Terrageddon | Premodern | Javi Lugo, Lobsercon 2024
- Creatures (13)
- 1 Wild Mongrel
- 4 Meddling Mage
- 4 Terravore
- 4 Weathered Wayfarer
- Instants (6)
- 2 Ray of Revelation
- 4 Swords to Plowshares
- Sorceries (7)
- 3 Armageddon
- 4 Call of the Herd
- Enchantments (4)
- 1 Seal of Cleansing
- 3 Sylvan Library
- Artifacts (4)
- 4 Mox Diamond
This deck has two Warmth. It can't protect its creatures, but Warmth unaddressed might give them time to get to Terravore + Armageddon.
I think if I won Game 1 I'd just remove two random expensive-ish cards for two Price of Progress. If I lost Game 1 I'd have to play some Naturalize + Forest, but not like all seven. The most hate enchantments I've seen in any deck was three. But it is the case that you have to answer a Circle of Protection: Red in a deck with mana control and the possibility of say two- or three-shotting you with a trampling 3-drop.
More than anything else I'd just be super focused on the core strategy of the matchup. They are likeliest to win when they get their combo (Terravore + Armageddon or Cataclysm) which both gives them a creature that is too big to easily burn and a trampling clock WHILE robbing you of resources. The onus on Burn, then, is to just kill them before they can combo off. I know that "Gear One chooses you" but I think aspiring fire gods have to lean into choosing Gear One more here in order to cut off being raced.
Oath Ponza
Imagine playing a game of Magic: The Gathering. Now imagine doing it either without creatures or without lands (or both!) ... Oath Ponza combines the powerhouse Oath of Druids [to search up the aforementioned Terravore] with a land destruction sub-theme via Winter's Grasp and Thermokarst to make playing much of anything from the other side of the table... Difficult at best.
This is a thoroughly weird matchup. I think it favors Red both on theory and in practice (I once lost a meetup match with Fran's G/W version to a Burn player who had never played the format before). I beat RG Oath at LobsterCon this year with Mono-Red, but it was also one of my losses (but that was kind of an outlier... I had three turns to draw either any one-mana burn spell or any land and I just kept drawing creatures).
The matchup revolves somewhat around Oath of Druids in Game 1 and Zuran Orb in the sideboarded games. It's super weird because you might run them over with Jackal Pup in Game 1 depending on their draw; but Jackal Pup is also potentially your worst creature. It's the only creature in your deck that doesn't potentially off itself, meaning it can set up a huge Terravore.
My guess is that most Oath players will leave in two Oath of Druids. It's quite bad against the default sideboarding strategy and also a potential backbreaker, especially against uninformed Red Deck players. To wit, in the $1k I won last year I actually Oathed up a Ball Lightning which, combined with the Ball Lightning I cast that turn, set up lethal.
- -2 Cursed Scroll
- -4 Jackal Pup
- -1 Shock
- +1 Forest
- +4 Naturalize
- +2 Price of Progress
This matchup can go either way. This is the rare matchup where the extra land is actually helpful at being a land. I don't think you need Tranquil Domain because who cares about Oath or Sylvan Library? You might have to care about Sphere of Resistance; and if you can contain Zuran Orb your overall strategy (lots of PoPs, Vortex) just demolishes them.
U/W LandStill
The classic U/W Control deck for Premodern has lost much of its luster in recent months. Should be a great matchup due to the opponent's difficult mana base + number of Counterspells triangulation. Just don't try to Naturalize their Standstill!
Game 1 is almost a never-lose scenario. Even the great Brian Selden (the former World Champion) lost this matchup on camera days before winning LobsterCon with LandStill.
The hitch is that if wanted to beat Mono-Red in three games, historically it could. They'd need two hate enchantments (probably) but it was doable. A single Circle of Protection: Red doesn't beat anyone, but a Circle + Arcane Laboratory or Circle + Warmth or Chill will.
Of course that was before the g/R version. Your lowest impact cards are Shock, followed by Incinerate.
You can go a lot of different directions, up to and including bringing in Call of the Herd for non-red damage. I wouldn't leave in Sulfuric Vortex unless you're bringing in Naturalize. It's probably not worth having Vortex in your deck at the same time as Tranquil Domain (which is going to be increasingly good the more hate your opponent brings in). In the abstract I'd add 2 Price of Progress and 2 Pyroblast for 2 Shock and 2 Vortex, then just see what happens (assuming you win Game 1). I'm not a huge fan of bringing in 100 sideboard cards that dilute your game plan for no reason (though I guess Naturalize at least interacts with Mishra's Factory).
You can demi-transform into a midrange deck with your Forest and lots of Green cards, which is actually pretty good depending on how they sideboard. For instance Wrath of God sucks against this deck and Call of the Herd is outstanding against both Blue Elemental Blast and Swords to Plowshares. It really depends on them. But you can overload if you want to. In which case Shock and Incinerate are your worst burn spells, especially if they have Warmth.