Land (21)
Creature (23)
Instant (12)
Sorcery (4)
Sideboard
Instant (6)
Sorcery (5)
Creature (4)
Tribal Flames is one of the most efficient burn spells in modern, as such, this deck is designed to take advantage of it. I believe it is well positioned in the current meta, and my extensive testing and results from the deck will begin to be posted in the 'results' section as I go through tournaments and testing with it. Because of the strict requirements of Tribal Flames, this deck must be four or five colors. I've opted for five, because of the wide range of other options it gives our deck access to.
Anyways, I've talked enough, let's dive into the deck!
Mana Dorks
4 Birds of Paradise: Casting five color spells are tricky, and birds gives us a lot less dependency on the first few lands. In this deck, she acts more as a life gain spell than a ramp card, as often times we will lead on a birds and follow it up with a two drop and a tapped land (to avoid taking too much damage from our mana base).
4 Noble Hierarch: Our extra four copies of birds. These work well with Geist of Saint Traft, allowing you to get him out on turn two. Exalted also triggers when you attack with Geist, so that's an added bonus.
Beaters
3 Geist of Saint Traft: Geist gives us a ridiculous clock against combo decks, and happens to be great against any deck looking to beat us with removal. Plus, powering him out on turn two can be game over against certain decks.
2 Bloodbraid Elf: I just added her to the deck for testing, and she has performed well so far. While cascading into a Geist can be awkward if you have one out, the rest of the deck is very proactive, which lends itself well to the Bloodbraid Elf playstyle.
Utility/Card Advantage
4 Snapcaster Mage: Turns out flashback on not just Tribal Flames, but any of our burn spells works very well. Plus, we like bodies. We'd prefer not to hit one off Bloodbraid Elf (usually), but the boost he brings to the deck far outweighs any potential nombos.
2 Dark Confidant: Drawing cards: good. Some people think I'm crazy for playing him in a deck with such a painful mana base, but so far, he's been decent. Not outstanding, but not bad.
4 Soulfire Grand Master: This offsets our painful manabase, and offers great value should we get to five or six mana. I've gotten weird stares and a lot of 'can I read that?'s from opponents, but my win percentages jumped almost universally after putting it in, so she will stay (at least for the time being).
Burn
4 Lightning Bolt: It is simply too good not to play.
4 Lightning Helix: A six point swing for two mana is good, and the life gain is, once again, crucial to keeping us alive long enough to grind out our opponent. Interestingly enough, it gains you six life if you have a soulfire grandmaster on the battlefield.
4 Tribal Flames: Two mana for five damage is a fantastic rate, and that's usually what tribal flames is. I get asked a lot why not just play Boros Charm? It's more versatile, yes, but Flames is better at one thing specifically: creatures. (Reality Smasher, Gurmag Angler, Tasigur, the Golden Fang - notice they all have five toughness?) Another nice interaction is against Jace, the Mind Sculptor. If our opponent runs out jace, we can kill him with one spell, guaranteed. Boros Charm can not (provided they plus two him).
Utility
2 Kolaghan's Command: Extremely versatile and a great card overall. He works well with Snapcaster Mage and Bloodbraid Elf, and is just an overall great catch-all in our deck.
2 Crackling Doom: There are few matchups where you don't want to see one Crackling Doom. It works wonders against Reality Smasher, Bogles, opposing Geist of Saint Trafts, etc. You have to be careful playing it against Death's Shadow, as they can often pump the Shadow enough to avoid having to sacrifice another creature, but that's only in extremely grindy games where they rely on their Tasigur for card advantage.
I'm not going to cover every sideboard choice at the moment, as the sideboard isn't completely flushed out. I will, however, go over basic strategies with the current sideboard against some top decks.
Humans
You can either play this matchup as a race or as a control deck. I haven't tested it enough to know which is better, but my current strategy looks something like:
IN
+1 Terminate
OUT
I generally like to cut down on cards that are good in the long game (like Geist and Confidant). Our deck just gets so much better once we start rolling that I think we just need to focus on staying alive and controlling their board for a few turns.
Jund
We are usually faster than them, and relatively resilient, so I like to stay low to the ground and streamlined in games post board.
IN
+1 Thragtusk
OUT
This gives us a more aggressive strategy, and resilient threats like Kitchen Finks are exactly what we are trying to do post board.
Tron
It's hard to win once they assemble Tron, so we need to be fast.
IN
+1 Molten Rain
OUT
Deflecting Palm is only good if they try to win with creatures instead of Karn. It is, however, fantastic against big creatures like Wurmcoil Engine, and one of our best draws against them. The rest of the board is designed to remove card advantage and life gain (as we don't need them as much here) and replace them with more proactive strategies.
Burn
Lifegain is our friend. I haven't played the matchup a ton, but in the six or seven times I've played, it's always felt close. Resolving a Soulfire Grand Master and keeping it alive will almost guarantee us the win, so protect her at all costs.
IN
+1 Thragtusk
OUT
Post board we have a bit more resiliency, but we're still trying to race them. Deflecting Palm acts as an extra two copies of Lightning Helix.
Wrap Up
I'll add some more situations later. If you have questions, feel free to ask!
Anyways, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed the deck, you can get the Grandmaster a snack by feeding her upvotes.
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| Date added | 6 years |
| Last updated | 6 years |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 13 - 1 Mythic Rares 32 - 9 Rares 10 - 4 Uncommons 4 - 1 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.97 |
| Tokens | Angel 4/4 W, Beast 3/3 G |
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