Dumb Burn

[Anonymous]

Greetings,

I wanted to ask the community why there is a fascination with a deck that I like to call "Dumb Burn".   This deck seems to pop up with novice players all the time.  In fact, I almost expect novice Type 1 players to run something like this just once.  The problem I have with this, is when I read postings on this site, I never see anything about "Dumb Burn" and how to prepare for it.  In fact, in discussing this deck with my friend who also reads this site, I asked him if the almighty Keeper deck is able to deal with it.  He assured me it could, but I don't see it.

Here's a decklist that gets the point across:

"Dumb Burn"

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Incinerate
4 Shock
4 Fireblast
4 Seal of Fire
4 Fire / Ice

4 Ball Lightning
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Gorilla Shaman

4 Blood Lust

8 Mountains
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga

SB:
4 Pyroblast
4 REB
4 Naturalize
3 Flame Burst (or the like)

The deck is just about the most boring thing I've ever seen.  Every turn looks like this:

Mountain - Bolt - "go"
Mountain - Chain Bolt - "go"
Mountain - Shock - Fireblast (sacrificing 2 mountains)

Now, I've read just about everything I can on Type 1 from this site.  I've read about Keeper, Gro-a-Tog, TnT, WW, Stompy, Sligh, Void, etc and I have no idea how any one of these decks can realistically stand up to the obscene amount of burn in this deck.  

Maybe WW can board in CoP: Red (and other flavors) and cards like Conversion, but those are SB cards only, and since Dumb Burn plows through cards (and my life total), how can I be assured I can get CoP: Red or Conversion into play in time to actually stabilize?  (Enlightened Tutor is restricted, so that's not even that good of a bet.)  On top of that, my WW has a hard enough time beating control so most of the SB are cards I play are cards like Orim's Chant and Topple.

As far as Keeper goes, I know that most decks run around 9 counterspells between Force of Will, Mana Drain, and Misdirection, and maybe after sideboarding, BEB but is that enough?   Dumb Burn will side in 8 Counters of their own to thawrt Blue.  I know Keeper runs hand destruction with Mind Twist, and maybeBalance, but even with those cards can Keeper realistically handle Dumb Burn?  

So, I guess my question(s) to the community is when you sit down at a large-ish (64+ people tourney) where very few people will run powered decks ( < 10 ), do you prepare your deck to fight Dumb Burn or do you concentrate more heavily on fighting the popular / powered decks?  What do you do when you realize you're sitting across from someone running a Dumb Burn deck?  

-Spankweasel
Type 1 Scrub

[Anonymous]

basically the solution to the problem is the deck itself.  They have no draw and only have burn as damage.  This means if you have creatures on the board you just race them for damage.  Now their burn is split between you and your creatures.  Advantage: creatures since the critters keep coming.  Burn is one shot.

The other problem with pure or almost pure burn decks is that they have no shot against most control decks.  COP red, story circle, ivory mask, zuran orb, conversion, all of these cards easily shut down burn.  

Most red decks use burn as creature removal and as final finishers.  A moantain goat will deal more damage against keeper than a lighting bolt will since the goat can keep swinging.  

A single resolved creature can potentailly kill any deck.  A single burn spell does not.  

Burn must be combined with creatures to be truly effective.

Red Stompy is almost 3 way split between critters, burn, and mana

The way that keeper beats decks like this it simple.  tutor for the twist, rip your hand away and see who top decks better.  They can draw more counters and answers.  Then you have to race your one burn spell a turn vs 5 damage a turn from a morphling that you cannot throw any burn at.

Control and Combo keep SRB from surviving.

[Ezechiel]

Your example give the solution:
In three turn, seven cards played, ten damaged done, down to one mountain. As keeper player, I am fine. I knew I just went through the initial storm and that the burn player is on top deck mode.

Top deck mode is threatening when you are around 4-5 life (in fact it depends on which deck you are playing with, but basically as long as one card is not enought to kill me, I am not overly concerned with Keeper), not when you still have 8, specially with keeper, with all the versatility.

After sideboard he is going to side in 8 REB ? Fine, he has to remove as much damage spell. Which means that for each successful burn spell trown at my dome, he has to use 2 cards. I can live with that. Price of Progress, Blood Moon or even Anarchy (depending which archetype you are playing) are far more threatening than REB. REB can't do anything about CoP: Red, Mind Twist, Zuran Orb... and Keeper has all tools to bring them quickly in play.

There is far more efficient mono-red deck that the one you gave as an example. And if mono-red are less complicated to play than Keeper, they are never as simple once you start to play with good players. That's true that sometimes, mono-red simply win. Its main advantage is consistency.

And also another point: if you designed a brand new deck which cannot handle this kind of single minded strategy, don't bring it at a tournament, you will sooner or later meet one red-burn.