With Burn in Modern getting infused with Treasure Cruise lately, Sam Black takes the concept a step further. What happens when you take that premise and add in Legacy fast mana? Sam begins the experiment!
Playing Jeskai Ascendancy in Legacy at the 2014 Season Four Invitational, one of the cards I was most impressed with was Lotus Petal. Obviously Lotus Petal is great with Jeskai Ascendancy, but I wondered if it could be good in other decks that are trying to aggressively cast Treasure Cruise.
Burn is a deck that’s not trying to play an attrition game. It’s happy to trade cards for damage, and Lotus Petal can essentially do just that. On turn 1, if you play Monastery Swiftspear, then Lotus Petal and Goblin Guide, the Lotus Petal has dealt three damage for -1 mana in that it costs nothing, your opponent has taken three extra, and your Goblin Guide is already in play. That’s a relatively ideal situation for it, but it’s also two mana toward a Treasure Cruise at any point, and it’s usually a card you’re happy to draw into off Treasure Cruise, as it lets you cast the last points of burn you were looking for.
Fast combo can be a problem, but this deck can also be very fast, as my draws in games 2 and 3 would each have killed on turn 3 if my opponent couldn’t interact.
Round 2
My hand in the first game was horrible, but drawing lands for my first three turns just made it look embarrassing. My draw in the second game was much better, and I can’t help wondering if I could have won if I’d played it differently. Maybe if I sent the second Lightning Bolt at my opponent instead of the Young Pyromancer, or if I’d killed the Young Pyromancer before playing my creatures. I’m not sure.
Round 3
I was a burn spell short of winning game 1, having drawn too many lands. I think I like how Lotus Petal is performing compared to a land, but I don’t think this is a deck that wants twenty lands. I’m probably playing two mana sources too many. Maybe a land and a Petal should be cut. Game 2 was close again, but it felt pretty unlucky that my opponent had Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy on turn 1, as I think Eidolon of the Great Revel would have stolen the game on turn 2 otherwise.
Round 4
This time I ended up being just a little too slow again, the first game I suffered from a combination of not having a creature and getting my Treasure Cruise countered, and in the second game, I just drew lands two turns in a row when I needed a spell.
My primary takeaways from this experiment are that this was too much mana for this deck and that Force of Will was very impressive against me. It makes sense out of fast combo, but I hadn’t really considered it because I usually play fair decks against Burn; I don’t really like Force of Will there, as it costs enough resources that they just get more time to resolve other burn spells.
