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"I make the play!"
SodekMTG recently posted a first-turn puzzle that, to put it simply, "went viral" on Twitter. Hundreds of players responded to SodekMTG, attracting attention from random followers, premium podcasts, and even a Hall of Famer.
Sadly, some of the best players - including unfortunately one whom I consider my own rabbi of Red Deck - submitted what I consider the wrong answer. I actually don't think it's very close and decided to use this space to talk about my own solution.
If you care about winning with Burn decks in Modern, this is probably a good article to read!
First, let's look at SodekMTG's post:
I'm testing Burn now and while the majority of games could be played by a six-year-old kid, sometimes I have decisions to make. This is one of them and I'm curious about your opinion.
— SodekMTG (@MtgSodek) July 11, 2023
G3 vs Grixis Shadow. What's the play? pic.twitter.com/rEFwbt1se9
Burn Heroes here have a good (if not unbeatable) opening hand; and the opponent has already started to do some of our job for us.
There is a Bloodstained Mire in the graveyard, a tapped Blood Crypt in play (together dealing three damage to the poor unfortunate opponent)... But at least they have a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in play.
Heroes have two lands...
... Two 1-drop creatures:
... and not three, but four relevant spells (on account of going second):
Realistically, you're going to make some play based on Inspiring Vantage so I'm not going to entertain any plays based on Sunbaked Canyon. Even if you weren't incurring a minimum of one additional damage you wouldn't necessarily have to take on turn one, the Inspiring Vantage loses utility every turn you don't play it. I don't think any one would seriously choose the Canyon here so I just won't spend any more time on it.
Of the plays we would reasonably make, sending a Lava Spike at the opponent is close to the worst.
I've written about a specific scenario on this site half a dozen times, but I think it bears repeating because SodekMTG did tell us the opponent is Grixis Death's Shadow. You simply don't play Lava Spike on turn one as a rule. I once spent an entire article on what makes Lava Spike a perfect Magic card to have in your deck (because you can't really screw it up)... But you can: And you can by playing it at the wrong time.
On Day Two of an Invitational I strolled by the Modern tables to watch my protege Roman Fusco play a Game 1. He had a kind of direction-less opening hand and so ran out a first-turn Lava Spike (again you should almost never do this in the dark).
He looked up, saw that I saw; then knew I would immediately start shaking my head.
"As soon as I did that," Roman would later tell me, "I knew my opponent was Death's Shadow."
Lava Spike is great in part because it costs one mana (meaning you almost always have spare mana to deploy it as part of a finishing flurry later in the game), and in part because it can tag team so effectively with Monastery Swiftspear. But the real reason you save it in the dark is because your opponent might be playing a Death's Shadow deck.
Every non-lethal burn spell that you point at an opposing Death's Shadow player is essentially a persistent Giant Growth. It's not that you never cast them... But the main reason that less experienced Burn players ever lose Death's Shadow matchups is because they don't appropriately respect how much extra ammo their spare burn gives the opposing clock. You just have to be mindful, and a random first-turn Spike is anything but mindful.
For this reason, you would also tend not to play a Goblin Guide and attack with it here:
You're playing burn. Your deck can't pivot. Goblin Guide attack.
— AliEldrazi (@AliEldrazi) July 11, 2023
I was a little sad to see a champion like Ali deploy this answer. First of all, anyone who's ever read Finding the Three Gears knows that the presumption that Burn can't pivot is misguided... But attacking with Goblin Guide is of particularly low expectation here. It's a less effective Lava Spike that might draw the opponent a card. It's not that you never attack with a Goblin Guide on the first turn, but that play just isn't good because of the surrounding context.
There are three reasons why, but any one of them is probably a game loser in isolation:
- The opponent obviously doesn't care about a small amount of damage (look what they just did to themselves with the Bloodstained Mire). I'd actually read them for at least one Death's Shadow in hand.
- The Goblin Guide has no backup. Our Searing Blazes aren't great right now for reasons I'll get into. It's not that we've double mulliganed or anything; but we have to think about Searing Blaze as a fourth or fifth turn spell here. Jamming is going to get us killed - and it's obvious why by the way.
- There is no reason to give the opponent a shot at a free card. They might actually block (i.e. they draw an extra card thanks to Goblin Guide and have an extra Ragavan); but the greater likelihood is that they just don't care about two damage, might like an extra card, and are going to win if we let them execute on a plan that is, again, quite obvious.
There are just too many things that can go wrong if we concede a Ragavan hit with a creature in play. The first-turn Guide attacks that beat Death's Shadow tend to be just the opening domino of a flurry of one-mana Gear One spells that we can get to resolve against an opponent who - importantly - doesn't have the initiative. Whereas our next play is a two-mana removal spell that probably isn't going to resolve.
Not throwing away Lava Spike and not sending Goblin Guide are just the worst plays someone would realistically make. For instance, no one would go Sunbaked Canyon into Lightning Bolt the opponent's face. That's worse than the Lava Spike play two different ways, and I'd consider Lava Spike the far end of range.
Would I attack with Monastery Swiftspear?
It's certainly not the worst play you can make.
I think it's on average worse than attacking with Goblin Guide unless you know the opponent has Death's Shadow in hand already, in which case it's still not good but better than the other attacker.
Grixis Death's Shadow is about the easiest matchup Burn has in Modern. In the six years since it's been a major archetype in Modern, I've lost to Death's Shadow variants fewer than five times total. The major reasons are that I tend to play for Gear One only opportunistically (most people play Gear One by default I think)... And playing Gear One unsuccessfully is the main way Death's Shadow can win.
If you try to pure race the Death's Shadow opponent they basically get a bunch of free Giant Growths and only have to stop your last card. They actually want you to chip shot them with minor burn and Guide strikes so that they can one-shot or two-shot you with their little, Black Avatar. You now have like 0-1 cards and they can save one permission spell or discard card for it so you end up losing. You were trying to be all fast and mana efficient and never realized you were playing into the opponent's strategy the whole time.
Successful Death's Shadow matches tend to fall comfortably into Gear Three. That means if you land your cards, you will inevitably win and there isn't much the opponent can do about that. "Landing" in this context doesn't mean that your spells resolve, or all resolve. My favorite Gear Three games usually involve sacrificing one juicy card so that my opponent taps out and I can successfully land the next three. Similarly Death's Shadow can "let" you resolve n-1 cards and just counter the last one. Their clock is so fast they kill you before you can "land" its replacement.
Not all Death's Shadow decks are Grixis; but the fact that some of them - including our opponent in this puzzle - are gives us one feature and one caution.
The feature is that we can play Gear Two, especially in Game 2. I typically have all my Searing effects in Game 2 just because I don't want to get hit by Ragavan. In fact, my first pass at sideboard analysis is whether or not a card can kill Ragavan. That you sometimes get to trade a Searing Blaze for a Dragon's Rage Channeler is a bonus.
The caution is that you never want to get hit by Ragavan. Again, Grixis Death's Shadow is one of the easiest matchups Burn has, but getting hit by Ragavan is the easiest way to give up the match.
There are so many things that can go wrong; but the construction of the Burn deck in sideboarded games is particularly devastating if you get hit. You have creatures, right? A Ragavan flipping over a Searing Blaze is catastrophic... But probably less catastrophic than flipping over a Lighting Helix. Beating either of those is difficult, but any Ragavan hit tends to suck because the more the Death's Shadow deck does it, the more "they" can essentially become "you" ... Except with card advantage. You start off with deck advantage, but they get access to your - again deck advantageous - spells, except with Treasure tokens and their own draw steps. The more you let this happen, the worse it gets.
The next tranche of available plays is all some version of suppressing Ragavan; which is correct in this context.
A number of competent-to-very competent players suggested casting Goblin Guide and passing the turn.
My first instinct as a red aggro player is Goblin Guide, go.
— Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank) July 11, 2023
I think this is pretty bad because it means we are going to lose if we do. frowny face emoji.
Our opponent spent three life, and didn't hold back Ragavan for second turn Dash. What do you think the chances are that the opponent keeps a seven-card hand that can't remove a single 2 toughness blocker?
What are the chances the opponent makes that play and can't remove a single 2 toughness blocker?
The typical Death's Shadow deck starts with Lightning Bolt and Unholy Heat at one. I'd actually guess they don't have either based on their turn one play. If it were me on the Death's Shadow side, I might play Bloodstained Mire and pass, see if the opponent sent a Goblin Guide, and cashed in value on a one-mana removal card if I had one.
But again, there is very little chance they keep a seven that can't kill a 1- or 2-drop. That means they probably have Drown in the Loch, Terminate, or Dreadbore... All cards that can force in Ragavan for a turn two attack: That's literally why they risked him on turn one. Because they think they can get him through.
Our chances of winning if the opponent hits us with Ragavan here are pretty remote and it's almost obvious why.
We probably have to beat Stubborn Denial or Spell Pierce.
How do we know?
Look at their mana. They used a Black-Red fetchland to get a Black-Red dual land, and spent the maximum amount of life to do it all. We'd have very different information if they used Scalding Tarn or Polluted Delta. Black-Red for Black-Red tells us almost definitively that they have Blue mana in hand. That doesn't mean that they have Stubborn Denial or Spell Pierce, but I wouldn't bet against it. I would gamble hard that they have Blue, after all.
Spell Pierce and Stubborn Denial are actually pretty easy to beat if you're Burn. That's because we can typically initiate cards that are either hard to stop contextually (e.g. Rift Bolt) or we can seize the initiative with un-counter-able cards like Goblin Guide or Monastery Swiftspear.
However if the opponent has the initiative (i.e. they have the only creature in play) and we're desperately sending two mana into one-mana Counterspells, yeah... They're going to look pretty good. But that's what happens when you misguidedly play Gear One or Gear Two when you're supposed to casually slide the opponent into Gear Three.
I'm not sure if "Goblin Guide, pass" or "Monastery Swiftspear, pass" is worse; both of them lose the game on Turn One. Basically, what is going to happen is the opponent will either play a land and remove our blocker, leaving a Treasure up for a one mana protection spell, or they'll rip Lightning Bolt or Unholy Heat and have even more flexibility for their turn two.
We have to assume our big plan for Searing Blaze is going to be thwarted and our best-case scenario is going to be playing from behind by at least two cards even assuming our second Blaze resolves (and it will probably only deal one damage, even if it does kill the Monkey Pirate). Crossing our fingers in the hopes of a block and trade is just not a winning line on average.
This leaves the best play.
Vantage, Bolt Ragavan immediately not close
— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) July 11, 2023
Because the opponent searched for a Blood Crypt there are some weird universes that you might wait for the opponent's upkeep to cast your Lightning Bolt, but I personally wouldn't... that choice leaves unnecessary wiggle room. If you want to kill Ragavan, you can just do it immediately; and the last thing you want is to eat a Feign Death or Undying Malice from an over-clever opponent.
I don't love most of our options in this game even though our hand is pretty good, but you don't have to go through all of the doomsday scenarios (above) to realize why an immediate Lightning Bolt is the best play.
Yes, fewer things can go wrong!
But we don't know the opponent has Goblin Guide removal. We don't know they have a Counterspell. We don't even know for certain Ragavan attacks, let alone is traded-with. Lots of literate people made sub-optimal suggestions in the Twitter comments. Maybe our opponent was a donkey and kept a terrible hand!
SodekMTG actually made the right play and lost, because his Searing Blazes lacked context going long and he (predictably) lost to a large Death's Shadow. However there were probably a bunch of other interesting and / or difficult decisions between turn one and that loss (including when Lava Spike got cast)... None of that can change the best play at hand.
Here are things I think:
- The opponent can remove a Goblin Guide immediately (I'd put this at almost 100% based on no mulligan)
- The opponent has Blue mana (I'd guess this over 80% based on land)
- The opponent has at least one Death's Shadow (I'd guess this over 75% based on aggressiveness with land)
- The opponent has a Counterspell (I just think this based on the fact that I'm fairly certain they have Blue)
Here are things I know:
- Grixis Death's Shadow is an easy matchup for Burn in the abstract.
- When both players mulligan exactly once, the player on the draw has the advantage.
Think about this from an advantage bar position.
Instead of both of us starting with seven cards, imagine we both have six (analogous to both players declaring a mulligan).
But it's more specific than that:
Your opponent not only declared a mulligan, they start on 17 instead of twenty, AND
This is your opening hand:
- Inspiring Vantage
- Sunbaked Canyon
- Goblin Guide
- Monastery Swiftspear
- Searing Blaze
- Lava Spike
- Searing Blaze
How happy would you be with the first six cards if you knew an opponent in a "good" matchup also declared a mulligan? How quickly would you snap that up?
Killing Ragavan immediately puts you essentially into a situation where you get to double down on your good matchup in the abstract with an additional bonus in the abstract "both players mulligan to six" (except they start on 17), when you're on the draw.
I don't know how SodekMTG sided in total. For instance, all your copies of Path to Exile should be in your deck. Not only do they kill Death's Shadow (original reason I always sided them in, and would have sided in Chained to the Rocks in the old days)... BUT THEY KILL RAGAVAN! Remember Rule One for this matchup. I'm guessing SodekMTG doesn't have Eidolon of the Great Revel so had to waste a lot of sideboarding for Skullcrack. I try to minimize the number of Burn cards in my deck that can't affect the battlefield in this matchup; so, when I have Lava Spike, it's rarely even four copies. I would guess, though, that any variances on the number of interactive resources available would make it even "more" right to kill Ragavan right now.
LOVE
MIKE
