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Burning Vengeance

AJ Kerrigan talks about the human psyche of spoiler season and some Burning Vengeance lists that he’s been diligently working on for Standard. If you like playing rogue decks, try one out at SCG Open Series: Providence.

Does anyone else smell that? Smells like spoiler season to me, and I’m excited! The plethora of new cards means that our minds are in full gear coming up with revamps of old favorite decks or trying to build something new entirely. I myself am looking forward to the first StarCityGames.Com Open Series in Providence after the release.

I love to see what everyone comes up with and how they evaluate cards. Not only is it an easy way to get a jump on new technology, but it also can teach us how to look at cards from different points of view. The key to improving is to learn from others and how they see things. The ideology of leveled thinking is often used in Magic. To start climbing up the ladder, you need to know how other people think and how to get inside their heads.

The Human Psyche of Spoiler Season

I recently had a conversation with my friend Jesse about relative thinking. Some people are born with an ability to figure things out, but most people have trouble directly evaluating situations and ideas. The easiest way for the human mind to define something is by relating it to something else that it has previously encountered.

How did you first learn that the stove was hot? For many, it was by touching it at a young age. For me, it was tripping onto the tailpipe of my dad’s motorcycle. Whatever the case may be, you probably didn’t touch the stove again, at least not willingly. Every time you saw that stove, maybe without even realizing it, your mind jumped to that one event: the one that didn’t end well for you. That means that most likely, touching it again will not end well for you.

OMG!!!! Wizards reprinted Ancestral Recall (see: Visions of Beyond). Magic is dead…..

WTF!!!! Wizards reprinted Time Walk (see: Temporal Mastery). Magic is dead…..

It’s so much easier to not actually evaluate the aforementioned cards. It costs U and says “Draw three cards” on it; well, then it must be on a similar level as Ancestral Recall. It can cost 1U and says “Take an extra turn after this one” somewhere on the card, but I thought the Power 9 was on the reserve list. When will those silly R&D people learn?

As I said, it’s easier to relate situations and ideas to ones previously experienced. It’s common knowledge that Time Walk is really good, but does that automatically make Temporal Mastery good?

Well, how easily achievable are the conditions for it to be Time Walk? How often will it not be Time Walk (and be pretty mediocre when this happens)? How often will you even be able to abuse it when it’s a Time Walk without proper control over when this happens?

These are the things that need to be considered. Using these simple questions, you can still keep it easy on yourself by using relativity, but you will also evaluate just how good the card is compared to what it’s modeled after.

When Visions of Beyond was first spoiled, it received a decent amount of hype. If you answer the questions I proposed above, you will see why it never really succeeded.

How easy are those conditions to meet?

Not very. Putting 20 cards in your graveyard isn’t something that happens easily without trying. If you’re trying, how much did you put in just to draw an extra two cards?

How often will it not meet the conditions?

This question is similar to the one above, except you have to evaluate how good the card is without the conditions met. As I said, it’s hard for the condition to be met naturally, and how good is drawing a card for a U? Nothing too amazing if you ask me.

Can you abuse the full force of the card?

There’s no doubt that Ancestral Recall is good, but as I said in the first question, how much value was lost to get it? In many cases, a decent amount.

Now that I’ve given you the template, try figuring out some of these miracle cards for yourself. It’s important to remember that Temporal Master is not Time Walk and Reforge the Soul is not Wheel of Fortune, no matter how hard you believe and no matter how many times you tap your heels together. Ponder is a step in the right direction to making these cards what you want them to be, but they still have their drawbacks. It’s also important to remember that when you start the game with a seven-mana cantrip in your hand, you’ve basically mulliganed. I don’t know about you, but I hate to mulligan.

Fine, You Can Have Decklists Now

Ever since I laid eyes on the card, I knew I wanted Burning Vengeance to work. It seems Wizards of the Coast did too, as they have been pushing it very hard in Avacyn Restored and Dark Ascension. I’ve spent many hours in Spanish class brewing list after list for “the little archetype that could,” but until now, it couldn’t (maybe that’s why I’m not so good at Spanish, but I digress).

With the new cards in Avacyn Restored, it might finally be time for Burning Vengeance to shine. One of the biggest problems with the deck was the expansive amount of hate cards present for it, but Avacyn Restored gives us new ways to work around that and new power to fight through it.


The first list is a pretty standard Burning Vengeance control deck. You’re trying to fight the long game and eventually out card them. Once everything you draw lets you draw another card and shocks them, you can keep everything in check. The biggest problem with this list is that without the namesake enchantment, you can’t really do much. It makes up for that by not really needing it early because of the other control elements, but you still fall behind if you don’t stick it eventually.

This deck feels weak to Solar Flare and Esper Control decks. Your control elements don’t match up to theirs, and they can go very big in a short amount of time with cards like Sun Titan. Overall, if control (mainly Esper) becomes big with Avacyn Restored as I expect it to, then this list will not be the right one. If aggressive decks that are weak to Slagstorm, Whipflare, and Mana Leak emerge as top dogs, this could be the deck for you.


This list is all about Burning Vengeance as your one and only game plan. You want to get it out fast and start pinging down the board. Once that is over, you head straight for the dome.

There’s not too much to be said about this list. It probably is just too clunky to succeed. If you don’t have a Burning Vengeance in the first few turns, you don’t have much in the way of control to hold to the fort. You’re relying on a strong, fast draw, which is probably too inconsistent for this deck to get enough.


Here we have what seems to be a midway point for the previous two lists. You’re trying to burn them out, with Burning Vengeance as a way to gain extra advantage out of your cards. Since your strategy is to burn them out as quickly as possible, you want to use the sweepers to keep pesky creatures like Delver of Secrets and Geist of Saint Traft off the board.

The long running problem with straight burn decks in Standard is that you run out of cards very quickly. With Burning Vengeance and Snapcaster Mage, you need fewer cards to start off with to get them from twenty to zero. This list is probably good against control decks and okay against most aggro decks. The sweepers can keep aggro off your back until you win, while the card advantage and massive amount of time make control matchups simple.

In truth, this may just be a worse Mono Red. The ramp matchup also seems very tough for you to win. You’re a slower burn deck with a better long game, but Wolf Run Ramp ignores your long game altogether. They will be casting Primeval Titans and swinging for 10 poison while you’re “durdling” around with Thunderous Wrath and Burning Vengeance. Some of the packages in this deck are also kind of sketchy. I’ve chosen to go all in on the Noxious Revival/miracle plan, but that might take up too many slots. There’s a lot of leeway in this list.


Now let’s have some fun. Regular readers of my column will now that I love combo decks. While this list is probably not very good, it’s something to get the juices flowing. I really want to be able to play a combo deck in Standard with a Storm type feel to it, but that just doesn’t exist nor will it ever if Wizards has anything to say about it (which they unfortunately do).

This is probably too inconsistent and expensive to really be a powerhouse. You need a hefty amount of cards to be able to actually win the game, and you need a lot of mana to invest. There isn’t enough room to really give yourself early protection, so aggro decks will go to town with you. Overall, it’s probably not good, but it sure is a lot of fun.

In conclusion, the decklists are all in the early stages. If you guys have some cool Burning Vengeance lists you’ve put together, I would love to see them in the comments section. The mana bases are the least developed parts of these decks. I wanted to keep them simple to start and make them more complex as the decks evolve.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my takes on Burning Vengeance. I wish you all luck at SCG Open Series: Providence and your release events. May your packs be filled with foil Temporal Mastery! Until next time, thanks for reading.

AJ Kerrigan

@AJKerrigan55 on Twitter