I mean, against burn, you seem 51-49 maindeck, then maybe 56-44 sideboard. That's decent odds I guess.

@EmrakultheGamingBeast burn doesn't seem like a bad matchup. There's lots of countermagic to help save life, and all the creatures help block their best burn spell, Goblin Guide.

Burn isn't an aggro deck: its a combo deck that relies on 2-3 lands and 6-8 cards that say "Deal 3+ damage to your opponent." Every time you counter one of their spells or block one of their creatures, it's like you got a Time Walk. Burn gets worse as the game goes on, since they have to try to react to their opponents game plan, which is always better than their late game plan. When the Burn player has to Lightning Bolt a Snapcaster instead of trying to tick you down to 0 from 9 life, they know they're dead.

Post board burn seems like it has a much harder time. There is no way this is just flaming trash against burn.

Also, if your considering going to an SCG Open or Classic, this deck seems very good against their meta. Dredge is the new craze there, and this deck seems like it beats up dredge. Maybe to be safe, add a Grafdigger's Cage or Yixlid Jailer to the sideboard. But your dredge matchup seems 57-43 maindeck, and with some persecutions, a moonlight, and jailer/cage, you seem 60+% against dredge.

Wow, Jailer is actually way better against Dredge. I'd replace the Cages with Jailers if you aren't scared of Nahiri Jeskai.

No creature is good against dredge, especially when it's 2 mana. They play Conflagrate and can cast it.

I'm testing Hallowed Moonlight right now because it hits CoCo as well.

I don't think this has a good matchup against Dredge. I don't think much does that isn't combo to be fair. If you don't counter that turn 1 Faithless Looting then you just lose the game when they play a land on turn 2 and bring in a Bloodghast and a Prized Amalgam. I can't deal with that much pressure that I can't remove or counter.

I'm used to seeing artifact destruction in Dredge purely because of cage, so thought a creature would be better. My bad.

Rest in Peace is something to consider instead of cage. After all, it still pushes them really far back if it dies. But I'm not really an expert on these things.

I agree with you that burn is a combo deck. But the most consistent combo deck in the format. So if I counter two bolts and than in two turns he draws two more while I draw random creatures ( except snap) than you will probably lose.

EmrakultheGamingBeast Remember that around 30 of the cards in the main deck are relevant in various scenarios. I could Spell Queller. Or bounce/kill a creature. Or Vial Sculler on draw. Or just keep blinking value cards with Displacer. It's a pretty fair game.

Yeah but this can also beat down damage fairly quickly. Little by little you end up with 2 power on board then perhaps 4 then 7 then 10 etc.

I'm evens with burn at the moment with a 2-1 win and a 1-2 loss. It's really dependent as I said above on quality of opening hand and the ability to close the game quickly with the creatures you play. As you say, if you dawdle and do nothing they will topdeck a bolt and you will lose. It does help though that we have spellskite here and the blue mana required to activate him without paying life. He does often eat a Destructive Revelry but spending 2 mana for 2 damage is a big tempo loss in a burn deck.

Yes fair, not unfair. No clock means burn has more draw steps than you have answers.

With all your bounce creatures, I don't see how bad you could be against dredge. Of course they could nut all over the place, but Path to Exile is just a great card against them, and bouncing a Prized Amalgam means they have a Gnarled Mass in hand. Which isn't super great for them.

And its not hard to dedicate some graveyard hate in your sideboard towards them and other graveyard based matchups (e.g. living end, delver, maybe even sometimes BGx/Grixis Control).

@EmrakultheGamingBeast I wouldn't call burn the most consistent modern combo deck. They have no filtering, a low land count, and if they have to mulligan, they are already super behind.

Yeah precisely but a fair few of my answers are clocks as well which is always nice. It's the point of the deck really. To not have to compromise between my control game and my aggressive game.

Now, having said that, they're not amazing clocks. I don't have anything like a Tarmogoyf etc but you know. Sometimes 2 and 3 power stuff is enough.

SwaggyMcSwagglepants - I dont know. Ive played against Dredge with Abzan and it was miserable. Bouncing is actually probably better than Abrupt Decay which is a definite plus. I'm unsure but I don't think it'll be pretty. I'm still not sure I'd prioritise that matchup over sorting out Affinity and others.

Brilliant!

I see he's gone the creature heavy Thalia route. To be honest I found the deck too slow to get away with that. Bit too soft to combo and a bit too soft to things like Jund as well to not play counters but it's certainly an option. With tidehollow sculler and thalia you do have options. I like it!

I wonder if someone would bring my deck to his attention? I don't have an account on mtgnexus so I can't but I think maybe he'd be interested.

But that deck seems really solid and Restoration Angel is just so sweet.

Its cool. I commented on it. I'm really really keen to see where this shell goes and what becomes of it. Thalia is such a great card...