by Elton Gahr

Created on: April 23, 2009

One of the most difficult thing about building your first decks is balancing the ability to be competitive against the cost of cards. There is little doubt in anyones mind now that the truly powerful cards are rare. One of the best solutions in the past to this was the idea of white weenie that relied on common white cards that could overrun the opponent before their typically more powerful deck could get started. Wizards, recognizing this deck has since ensured that the most powerful of white weenie cards are rare increasing the cost of this deck and forcing budget players to look elsewhere. And the best solution left is a burn deck.

There is a temptation when building a burn deck to move into multiple colors. Every red player knows the danger of the circle of protection red and should be right to fear it, but for the player on a budget mono-color is the best idea. The consistency of land will strengthen your play more than the loss to a few specific cards will harm you. In addition you can avoid the expensive dual lands.

Before you can begin to build the deck you must consider the most basic math. The classic burn spell is the lightning bolt. Though the cost of burn has went up it the 3 damage remains the standard. At three damage you will be forced to play 7 spells to kill your opponent. This means that in a deck of nothing but lightning bolts and mountains and a perfect draw you could play a single mountain and cast one lightning bolt on the first turn. Leaving your opponent at 17 and leaving 5 cards in your hand. The next turn you will play a second mountain and two more lightning bolts. This lowers your hand size to 3 and your opponents life at 11. On your third turn you run into the problem. Drawing your forth card you play the third mountain and all three lightning bolts leaving your opponent at 2 hp. Your hand is now empty and only a marginal amount of bad luck will have you drawing land for 2 more turns allowing your opponent enough time to kill you in many games.

It is for this reason that the typical burn duck is not highly regarded. The math simply leaves you on the draw to win. One solution to this is the X spell. This means that you can draw extra lands and land that final blow as well as killing larger creatures without being forced to use multiple spells but alone it doesn't improve the speed of the deck all that much.

A few creature are the next choice. Using a few creatures to deal the damage while clearing the road with burn is a time honored plan of the red magician as well as the use of disposable creatures. Each of these can be a major advantage and there are many inexpensive red creatures that fit well into a burn deck.

The final consideration for a burn deck is that of mass removal. Though not quite as effective as some of the other colors red a wide variety of spells that can kill. Earthquake or inferno can both be useful as a way not only to remove creatures but to deal the last damage to an opponent. The danger of these are that they damage you as well limiting their usefulness but if your deck has few creatures it is a near certainty that if you can survive the spell you will come out ahead.

The biggest key to a budget burn deck is that of flexibility in sets and cards. No one set or even block has enough cards to create a burn deck that is likely to stand up to others, but by plucking out one or two cards from multiple sets and considering exactly what you need to do to kill the opponent you can build a deck that will beat far more expensive decks consistently.

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