Prototype R/W Burn Tokens
A build that I've been working on for a little bit. There's been a few changes since the first build that I came up with that relied more heavily on an aggressive approach with cards like monastery swift spear and wild slash. The current build functions fairly well and has a strong game against other aggro decks. Up against control decks and ramp decks that you can take off of their ramp game early on by torching their dorks and resolving a rabblemaster into a mentor is just bad news for them altogether.
With that being said I'll go through the card choices, why they're there and what is the general strategy of the deck.
Soulfire Grandmaster:
This is our turn two creature drop that simply wins us the match ups against aggro decks and performs 3 functions. First of all the obvious is that its a 2/2 with lifelink and gives our instants and sorcery spells lifelink as well. As a 2/2 blocker it can block the rabble master tokens and not only prevent the damage but gains us two life in the process. Granted you should be careful with how you block with it and it is susceptible to a ton of removal spells. But if they're going to smoke one of our grandmasters then thats one less spell going to our face, and one less spell to kill our other creatures.
If the grandmaster sticks in an aggro matchup then the game is pretty much yours. With cards like stoke the flames, lightning strikes and collateral damage you can very easily undo a lot of the work that your opponent has done. The other function is the buyback ability. One of the problems with burn/aggro decks is that they can be extremely aggressive but runs out of gas early. Soulfire buys us back an extra collateral or a lightning strike allowing us to just get a bit more damage out of our spell to get us to the finish line.
Goblin Rabblemaster:
Amazing card as everyone already knows. A guy that creates tokens that can be used to help cast a stoke the flames is just value. But on top of that we can also use those tokens to sac for our collateral damage. You can also go the other route of using your burn spells as removal and swinging through with an unblocked Rabblemaster can easily mean game in one or two turns. The only problem is that he'll eat a removal spell almost all the time. Which is fine - a soulfire grandmaster curving into a goblin rabblemaster puts a good amount of pressure on our opponents and an untouched rabblemaster for 2 turns can be very bad for them.
Monastery Mentor:
In testing this guy has been the star of the deck when he resolves and sticks. His ability to be pumped from his burning spells as well as making a prowess 1/1 token is just getting us absurd amounts of value. On top of that with rabblemaster on the field we can easily trade a goblin token for a monk token by using collateral damage. The magical christmas land with this deck is having a purphoros and a impact tremors on the field. I had this happen once I beat my opponent by playing a raise the alarm which hit him for 9 damage total overall. He can easily allow you to switch from a burn strategy to a going wide strategy if that is what the situation calls for. Otherwise you can just keep burning your opponents and making a bunch of 1/1 tokens that serve as blockers.
Purphoros, God of the Forge:
He's really there because of the heavy token strategy in the deck. Not entirely critical for the deck to win but him resolving and if you have a mentor on the field with cards like raise the alarms you're easily going in for 6 damage straight off the bat while making 3 bodies. Not entirely sure that he'll stay in the deck as his casting cost is a bit extreme and I would just prefer to play an outpost siege at this point. Will probably take him out and put in 2 Wild Slash instead
Impact Tremors:
The card that does the same effect as purphoros albeit at half as much damage but he costs 2 mana less. I find this much better than purphoros as unlike the god, this thing triggers our mentor's prowess. At 2 cost its cheap enough to play and still allows us to keep mana up for things like wild slash or collateral damage.
Raise the Alarm:
We can't always rely on rabblemaster and mentor sticking to the field and in cases where you don't have any of thosse raise the alarms provides instant speed bodies that can be used to fuel collateral damage or trade with certain creatures. I don't want to run hordeling outburst due to its casting cost and that its sorcery speed. Dragon Fodder is simply less effective in this deck as well due to that sorcery speed. With this card we have instant speed that can trigger Monastery mentor and puts out 3 creatures instead of just two. And with a card like impact tremors in play it becomes a lightning strike as well or at the very least a shock spell
Outpost Siege:
Not much to say about this card. Card draw engine, keeps giving us gas and can easily close out the game for us. Too good to not play.
The burn package is pretty simple so I won't go over those. We're running the standard lightning strike, stoke the flames, magma jets spell package.
The one card that is slightly different is
Collateral Damage:
I really love this card in this deck as it gives a lot of value and with so many creatures that are susceptible to searing blood you can easily blank that spell by sacing the creature and dishing out 3 damage of your own. Its a great card and for one mana its an easy buyback for Soulfire and you can just continue to sac tokens all day.
The General Strategy:
What I like about this deck is its ability to win with different options. I've won matches with Goblin Rabblemasters, Monastery Mentors, combinations of both, burning my opponents, or just constantly generating tokens and getting more value out of my burn spells. There are different lines of play and sequencing involved as sometimes you might find yourself going to a more creature based aggro strategy and you're just using your burn spells as removal. Post sideboard you have a few more options to help you deal with bigger creatures by using spells like chained to the rocks, roast, and Sarkhan to help you go over the opponent. I thought about SBD but Sarkhan does the same effect for us and still gives us some versatility in being able to tick down and stoke another dragon or 4 toughness creature like wingmate roc.
Its a deck that does require you to take a look at what options you have available and deciding what is the best line of play. There are still a lot of things that needs to be considered. I will probably be taking Purphoros out entirely and just running wild slash or magma jets instead. I'm open to suggestions and criticisms.
I played this on a sunday standard and went 2-2, and played it at a tuesday standard and it went 2-1. The first game was against a b/w aggro deck, the second game was a ramp deck. Both games the deck won pretty handily. The aggro matchup was close but thats to be expected to be honest. However I ended playing a sultai reanimator deck (the one reid duke piloted at SCG Richmond) and I knew from the get go that I lost that match up. We don't really have a way to deal with creatures like tasigur that comes in on turn 3 followed up by Sidisi and a Dragonlord Silumgar. Sure chained to the rocks is a thing but so is reclamation sage. That matchup is just easily not in our favor AT ALL lol.
All in all I'm ok with this deck. Its not really that competitive and is more built to prey on certain metas rather than being an all around competitive deck. In aggro heavy metas this deck can easily get there. It is a fun deck to play though so it has that going for it.
